No Such Thing as Destiny
by Slavok
Summary: It is said that those born with silver eyes are destined to lead the life of a warrior, but Ruby doesn't believe in destiny. Not when it's her destiny to watch her friends die. Time travel fic.
1. Destiny

No Such Thing as Destiny

Chapter One

Do you Believe in Destiny?

 _I'll find them._

A promise as a Huntress. A promise was a chain, pulling Ruby forward, upward, toward the sky along the tallest tower in the city.

 _I'll find them, and I'll bring them back._

A promise to her friends, for her friends. Ren and Nora waited at the evacuation point, too worn out and hurt to go back into the fight by themselves. That left Ruby and Weiss to find Jaune and …

" _Don't worry about me! Please, you have to save …"_

Pyrrha.

Jaune had sounded so desperate over the phone, more than she had ever heard anyone before. But she knew that desperation. She had _felt_ it. Right before Penny died.

 _Too late_. She had seen the threat, but she had gotten there too late to save her. With Yang, Ruby hadn't even known she was in danger until she found her lying on the ground, her right arm ending in a stump, her dreams and ambitions replaced by a few dirty bandages. She had been too late for Penny and too late for Yang, but for Pyrrha, there was still …

Hope. Hope and a promise pulled her forward and upward, her feet hitting against the tower wall as white glyphs appeared beneath her, giving her the traction she needed to fulfill both. _Time._ As long as the clangs and crashes of battle rang overhead, she still had …

Silence. The noise from the fight between Pyrrha and her opponent had stopped. _Too late._ No. _Not_ too late, not too late!

She reached the top of what was left of the tower–the roof had been torn off–and landed lightly on all fours, and what she saw burned itself into her memory like a searing flame.

Pyrrha, long red hair and golden armor, the perfect Huntress, the untouchable warrior, on her knees. Before her, Cinder, Emerald and Mercury's teammate, black hair and heels, with a bow pulled taut and an arrow nocked.

And then she let go, and the arrow embedded itself in Pyrrha's chest right about her breast plate. She raised her hand to the arrow and tried to speak, to breath, to …

Cinder stepped forward and placed a hand on her head, gently, as if, Ruby thought, to offer comfort. But Pyrrha's body flashed golden, and dissipated into the air like embers in the night.

A golden circlet fell through the space where Pyrrha had been, and Ruby felt that void like a knife through her heart.

 _I will find them, and I will …_

 _Save Pyrrha! You have to save …_

 _Too late. Too late. Too …_

No. No! It couldn't be! She couldn't … she had to …

The emptiness inside of her, the vacancy that had once been filled with the certainty that everything would work out, collapsed on itself. She screamed out, and everything turned white.

WWW

"What did you do to her?"

"Nothing! She crashed into me, and then she just fell over."

"I guess your friendly smile needs work. It looks a bit too–"

"Shut up!"

Ruby's view focused, and what first seemed like staring into the sun faded into a ceiling hall light. She blinked and groaned. Her brain felt like it had gone through a blender and her whole body felt sore. The light went out, blocked by a face with red eyes, like Yang when she got angry.

"You okay, kid? I didn't mean to bump into you like that."

"Technically, she bumped into you."

"Can it, Merc."

Ruby shook her head to focus and saw … Emerald. Red eyes, tan skin, green hair–killed Penny–with her hand extended as if to help her up. She backed away and somersaulted backwards to her feet. "You!" Mercury stood next to her, in grey and black.

Emerald blinked, her face a mask of fake confusion and concern. "Sorry, have we met? We're exchange students from Haven, trying to find our dorms, but we must have gotten turned around or …"

She was in the Academy, Ruby realized, just down the hall from her own dorm. How did she get here? She was on top of the tower a moment ago, the roof torn off and gears scattered across the floor, watching Pyrrha … and now she was back here, and _why_ was Emerald acting so nice again?

"What game are you playing?" she demanded.

Emerald held her hands up, palms outward. "Game? I don't know what you're talking about. We're just–"

"It ends now!"

Emerald laughed, as though at a joke she didn't completely get. "What?"

Ruby pulled out Crescent Rose from behind her back and unleashed it, slamming the tip into the ground and pointing the barrel at Emerald. "It ends _now_!"

Emerald backed away, but Mercury just smirked. "Beacon hospitality. I think I'm going to like it here."

A figure from behind him placed a hand on his shoulder. "We've been here one day." Cinder stepped into view, wavy black hair covering half her face. "Let's _not_ try to wreck the place just yet." A yellow-orange eye that seemed to glow by its own light turned to Ruby. "Nice scythe, kid. I hope you know how to use it."

Ruby knew. She knew how to use Crescent Rose more than she knew anything, but would it be enough? Cinder had been able to defeat Pyrrha– _kill_ Pyrrha–and Mercury had been a near even match for Yang. That wasn't even counting Emerald. Any of them alone would be more than a challenge, but all three of them together?

All three of them together turned around and walked away. Ruby blinked. She stood there with a high caliber sniper rifle pointed at them, and they ignored her like she was nothing more than a little girl playing with toys. Before she could decide whether to feel insulted or relieved, they were around a corner out of view.

Ruby let out a breath that she didn't know she was holding and looked around. It was the Academy, alright, just like she remembered it. _Exactly_ like she remembered it. She looked out a window, and instead of seeing marauding bands of Grimm, there were only city lights.

She refolded Crescent Rose, put it on her back, and opened the door to her dorm room. She didn't know what she expected with Yang and Blake ready to be loaded onto transport and Weiss, she wouldn't have come back here, right?

She looked inside, and saw her whole team, Weiss, Blake, and Yang, standing around the room like nothing had ever happened. And for a second impossibility on top …

"Yang!" Ruby said. "Your arm's back!"

Yang blinked. "I'm armsback? What's that mean?"

"I–it means–you're all better now!"

Yang looked at Blake and Weiss. "Um, thanks? But really, I'm not sure what's going on."

"How do you think _I_ feel? The last thing I remember was you and Blake fleeing the city, and there were Grimm all over the place, and an army of robots, and, and … you're all looking at me like I'm crazy."

"Never crossed my mind," Blake said.

"Hold on, are you still talking about the game?" Yang said.

"Game? What game? What are you talking about?"

"You know, the board game we were just playing?" Yang asked. "The one we left in the library? The one you just left to go get? Ring any bells?"

Ruby shook her head. "No, no bells are ringing. This is so weird. I don't know if this is a major case of deja vu, or …" She gasped. "What day is it?"

"Thursday."

"No, what _day_ is it?" She bolted forward and snatched Weiss's planner off her desk. Weiss scheduled every event of every day, and checked it off as soon as she was done. Ruby flipped through it, looking for the date.

"Hey, that's mine!" Weiss said. "I gave you no permission to rifle through my things!"

Ruby reached the final unchecked page and gasped again. "Is this true?"

"Yes," Weiss said, swiping the planner away. "This is mine, not yours. If you want to play with it, you have to ask."

"No, is it really the twenty-eighth of August?"

Weiss gave her one of her looks. "Is that what you wanted? Why didn't you just check your scroll?"

"Lost it. It broke during my fight with Mercury."

"You got in a fight without me?" Yang said. "When did this happen? Did you win?"

August twenty-eighth. The Vytal Festival hadn't even started yet, and the tournament was still more than a month away. Was that even possible? It did explain how there weren't any Grimm in the city and how Yang had both arms again, and it was hard to argue with Weiss's planner. She pulled her scroll out of her pocket, and it was as good as new.

"Okay, little sis, now you're just teasing me."

But if she was right, then … "Be right back!" She raced out of the room and burst into JNPR's room right across from them. And just like with her room, JNPR's room looked exactly like she remembered it.

"Oh, come on, Ren. Please?"

"No. What did I tell you about being in the kitchen?"

"That I look great in an apron and you need my help?"

"That any chef's job is hindered when the ingredients are actively being consumed."

"Well, sor-ry, Ren! I thought you were done."

"Cookie dough, by its definition, is _not_ done."

"Cookie dough, by its definition, is delicious!" Nora looked towards Ruby standing in the doorway, as though noticing her for the first time. "Isn't it, Ruby? Tell Ren that there's nothing wrong with it."

"Besides salmonella," he said, "there's nothing wrong with it at all."

"And with enough sugar, you can't even taste the fish."

"That's not …" He sighed. "Ruby Rose, my apologies. What can I do for you?"

Ruby smiled weakly. "Okay, this may sound really weird, but is Pyrrha here?" If she was right, then Pyrrha would be right around here as though nothing had happened (because it hadn't yet), but still, Ruby had to see her with her own eyes.

"She's on the roof, sparring with Jaune," Ren said.

"Right," Nora said. "They're not making out, they're just sparring. And nothing else."

"Of course they're just sparring," Ren said. "Why would you even suggest otherwise?"

"I wasn't. I was denying anything else."

Ren shook his head. "Anyway, would you like me to call her down? Nevermind, it sounds like they just finished."

Ruby heard the metallic clangs of a ladder being climbed, and Jaune climbed in through the window. He walked stiffly, like he was sore all over. Ruby could sympathize. "I'm not quite dead. I might not be getting any better, but I'm still alive."

Pyrrha climbed in after him, tall, graceful, and _alive_. "Oh, don't be so hard on yourself. You've made remarkable improvements on your form." She noticed Ruby, her green eyes as vibrant as they had ever been. "Good evening, Ruby. Can I help you?"

She swallowed. "You're … you're alive."

"Pardon?"

"You're alive!" _I'll find them, and I'll bring them back. Mission freaking accomplished. Up yours, Death! I got time travel!_ "And if you're alive, then Penny is too!"

Pyrrha frowned. "Are you well?"

"I'm not crying, I swear!" she said, wiping her eyes.

"Who's Penny?" Nora said.

 _Team RWBY isn't going to believe this!_ "Hold that thought." She ran back into the hall and burst into her room.

"For how long?" Nora called after her.

"Guys!" Ruby said, slamming the door behind her. "Guys guys guys guys!"

"We heard you the first time," Weiss said. "What?"

"You'll never guess what I just did!"

"You've committed yourself to a mental institution?"

"No, Weiss, even better! I managed to time travel!"

Weiss made a face. "Better seems like a strong word for this situation."

"Hold on," Yang said. "Do you mean that in the 'everything stands still' sort of way, or the really really complicated sort of way?"

"The complicated one. Yang, Weiss, Blake? As of today, I am from–the _future_!"

"Neat!" Yang said. "Do we win the Vytal Tournament?"

"Um, yes."

"Excellent!"

"Hold on," Weiss said, turning on Yang. "Are you really going to humor her on this?"

"As long as it's funny."

"But then you got disqualified because the fight was sabotaged," Ruby added.

"Aaand, it's not funny anymore."

"And you lost an arm."

Yang looked up. "Really? Do I get it replaced with a really cool robotic one?"

"Um, you got first aid. I kind of time traveled before you had the chance to become a cyborg."

Yang sighed. "Man, the future sucks."

"Tell me about it."

"Could we focus on reality for a bit?" Blake asked.

"This is reality!" Ruby said. "The future is real, it's horrible, and we have to change it!"

"Reality is another strong word," Weiss said. "The way I see it, our fearless leader has either run so fast time went backwards …"

"Is that a thing?" Ruby asked. She had been using her Semblance a lot right before the end.

"Or, you ran so fast you hit your head on something."

"My head's fine! I'm from the future!"

"Sure you are." Weiss rolled her eyes. "Maybe we should postpone our plans until Ruby is … maybe 'normal' is the wrong word for this situation, but you know what I mean."

"Plans? What plans?"

"Investigating the White Fang," Blake said. Her eyes narrowed. "You seemed really enthusiastic about it five minutes ago."

"But five minutes ago was back in August!"

"It _is_ August."

"Not in the future!" Hold on … White Fang? She remembered that, vaguely. "Wait, was that the time we fought the giant robot?"

"Of course it was," Yang said. "Now, why don't you lie down, and I'll take care of everything."

"But I'm not tired. And I'm _not_ crazy! The future needs us!"

"I know it does. But the future also needs someone to pack up the board game before it ends up in the lost and found." Yang walked out the door without another word.

Ruby turned to Blake. "You believe me, don't you?"

Blake gave her one of her looks. Weiss's looks were mostly condescending, but Blake's were more calculating. "Are you serious?"

"I'm always serious!" Blake gave her another look. "Okay, but I'm serious about this."

"Saving the future? Protecting people? Making the world a better place?"

"Well, that is what being a Huntress is all about, right?"

Blake gave her a third look, one Ruby couldn't read. "Then what does it matter why?"

" _Because_ ," Ruby said, "time travel is _so_ much cooler than just being mopey and pessimistic. I mean, no offense, you make it look good, but, um …"

"I'm going to bed now."

"Yeah, okay."

WWW

So my friend Magery (who also edited this, thanks man) got me started on RWBY, and it was all gumdrops and icecream until season three happened. I'm pretty sure that one of the stages of grief is to rewrite history via fanfiction, so here I am.

I know I'm going to get a lot of the details wrong and I'll be making up a lot of stuff because, well, artistic license and all that, but for the record, I'm assuming that the last episode of season three happened on October 31 (which has no corresponding holiday on Remnant, yet), giving Ruby about two months to save everyone.


	2. Hammer Time

No Such Thing as Destiny

Chapter Two

Hammer Time

That night, Ruby had a dream that all the professors at Beacon had been replaced by Grimm, and Professor Beowolf required them to learn how to dance in preparation for the final exam. She woke up more determined than ever to do whatever it took to save the future.

"Alright, girls!" Ruby said, jumping out of bed. "Your beauty sleep ends now! Because today is the day we show the world that we're not going to let it do whatever it wants! Today is the _day_ we rewrite history!"

"What time is it?" Weiss groaned. She looked at a clock on her nightstand, then buried her head under her pillow.

"Laziness won't save the future, Weiss! Blake! If I remember correctly, you're going to infiltrate a White Fang recruitment meeting."

Blake yawned, stretched, and rolled over. "Yeah, okay."

"And then you get attacked by a giant robot. Any questions?"

"No, no, I'm … hmm."

"Good! Then you lure it away from their base, and then all four of us ambush that bucket of bolts and hit it with everything we got! After that, Roman Torchwick is going to climb out of it and this girl with different colored eyes and pigtails is going to appear out of nowhere and help him escape, but _here's_ the twist. Are you listening?" Her audience waited in rapt silence save for the occasional snore. "We don't let them! Sound good?"

Yang rolled over. "Hey, since you're already up, do you want the first shower?"

Ruby looked at her team. They were so overwhelmed at their duties, they couldn't even get out of bed. "Okay," she said, grabbing her towel and proceeding toward the bathroom. "But if any of you figure something out for the last part of the plan, let me know, because Umbrella Girl is tough."

WWW

Between breakfast, classes, lunch, and more classes, it was mid afternoon before they had the chance to execute plan Save the Future, Part One.

"Alright, team! Does everyone know their parts?"

"I'm going to infiltrate a White Fang recruitment meeting," Blake said. "And everyone else is going to be waiting outside just in case I need backup."

"When you need backup," Ruby said. "Roman Torchwick is going to recognize you after revealing a secret White Fang base in the … south west, was it? I think so, and then he's going to come after you in a stolen Atlesian Paladin. You're going to lead him away from his support, and then the rest of us are going to join you and capture him. Got it?"

"You are making far too many assumptions about our enemy's tactics, resources, and abilities," Weiss said.

Ruby held her arms out. "I'm from the future, remember? I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this at _least_ twenty times already."

"At least," Weiss agreed. "So when are we going to stop treating this time travel thing like a game and start treating it like a condition?"

"This isn't a game. This is real!"

She sighed. "Whatever. Now, since the recruitment meeting doesn't start until dark, I believe my time would be better spent looking into Schnee Dust thefts in this area."

"And while that's going on," Yang said, "I think I might check out a nightclub I got banned from awhile back. Best case scenario I'll get a new lead, worst case, I'll get a warm up."

"Sounds great!" Sun said, hanging upside-down from a tree outside their window. "Let's do this!"

"Hey, Sun," Ruby said.

"What are you doing here?" Weiss demanded.

"He's coming with us," Ruby said.

"You invited _him_?"

Ruby laughed. "Of course I didn't, silly! What would be the point? He was going to come along anyway." She turned back to Sun. "Did you bring Neptune?"

His face fell. "Seriously? He was supposed to be a surprise."

"Can I come in now?" Neptune said from outside the window.

"Sure," Ruby said. "And Sun? You can't surprise me. I'm from the future."

He frowned. "There's an inside joke here that I'm not getting."

"You're not alone," Blake said.

"Lovely," Weiss said as Neptune climbed in through the window. "Why don't we just bring _everyone_ along with us?"

Ruby paused. "You know what? That's a really good idea!" This wasn't just a Team RWBY problem, this was the future! Everyone had a stake in it.

Weiss sighed. "I was being facetious."

"Then you'll just have to hold it until we're done."

" _What_?"

"Sun, you're going with Blake to the White Fang meeting. Neptune, you're with me to back them up when things go south."

"Um, I'm not sure you need two people just to wait outside a meeting," Weiss said. "Maybe Neptune should go with me instead?"

Neptune winked at her, but Ruby just laughed. "Come on, you're making a _phone call_. I think you can handle that all by yourself."

"Well, of course, but … never mind."

"Alright everyone! Move out!"

Ruby and Neptune were the last ones out. "So, this may be a bit sudden," Neptune said. "But your friend, Weiss, is she single?"

Ruby laughed. "Of course not."

"Figures."

"There are _four_ of us." Why did he even ask? He just _met_ their team.

Neptune blinked. "Now, did you mean that in the same I meant that, or are you just being facetious?"

"No, I already went, but thanks for asking."

"Um …"

"But speaking of pit stops, there's one more thing we need to do." She knocked on Team JNPR's door. "Hey, Jaune, you in there?"

Jaune stuck his head out the door. "Huh? Oh, hey, Ruby. And new guy."

Neptune nodded. "Hey."

"So, we're all heading out to end all organized crime in Vale and possibly save the future in the process," Ruby said. "Wanna come with?"

Jaune looked over his shoulder. "Um, I'll check with my team, but it sounds kind of reckless."

"Okay," Ruby said. "Go over it with your team, but just so you know, Weiss will be there …"

"Oh."

"We'll be making the world a better place …"

Behind him, Pyrrha looked up.

"And there will be a giant robot Nora could hit with a hammer."

"Hammer time!" Nora called out.

"So go ahead and put it to a vote."

Ren frowned. "This still sounds very unwise."

"Yeah, I know," Jaune said. "But I think we should discuss this." He turned back to Ruby. "I'll get back to you."

WWW

That night, Ruby and Neptune waited outside the marked warehouse that Blake and Sun had infiltrated, as silent as the grave. At least, as silent as Ruby intended on being when dead.

"Oh, we're doing a stake out! This is so cool! Admittedly, it would be more fun if there was steak in the stake out, but still, this is so cool!" She was going to have a lot of fun as a ghost.

"I take it you've never actually staked anything out before," Neptune said.

Her eyes widened. "Have you?"

"Yup. It was the most boring forty-eight hours of my life. Sun and I took turns staring out a window until someone else took over."

"Forty-eight hours? That's like, two days! But don't worry, any second now, a giant robot is going to come crashing out of that building, and all this waiting will pay off."

"Yeah, but that's the thing about stake outs. You never know what's going to happen. For all we know, Sun and Blake might go entirely unnoticed."

"For all we know? For all you know. I know better, because I am from the future."

"Right. And that means what, exactly?"

"It means that it will be robot time right about … any second now … wait for it …" Her scroll let out a buzz, making her jump. It was a message from Jaune. "Ooh, Team JNPR is coming. Okay, when they get here, there's going to be a girl in a pink skirt and a big hammer."

"Okay," Neptune said. "I like this so far."

"And I need you to electrocute her."

"What? But why?"

"Trust me on this," Ruby relied. "I'm from the future."

"But how did you even know I could do that?"

"Future."

"But–"

Glass shattered in the distance as Blake and Sun jumped out a window, and then concrete shattered as an Atlesian Paladin burst out through the wall behind them.

WWW

"I don't believe it!"

"Run faster!"

"It's a giant robot, just like she said!"

"Hence, running!"

"But how did she know?"

"Like I said! I'm from the–"

"Don't say it!"

"But I am!"

"Don't mean to interrupt, but didn't you have backup planned?"

"Weiss is on her way, and Yang just told me she's parking Bumblebee."

"Parking what?"

"Her bike."

"What? We're running for our lives, and she's worried about her bike?"

"Well, you can see what that thing is doing to _cars_! It's tossing them around like pillows! Bumblebee wouldn't stand a chance!"

"Hey guys! What did I miss?"

"Yang! Oh, just the giant robot. It's still chasing us. We should probably do something about that. Also, Sun wants to wreck Bumblebee."

"He _what_?"

"Hey, that is _not_ what I–"

"Watch it, Sunshine, mess with my bike and I will _end_ you."

"Look! Weiss is here! Over here, Weiss!"

"I saw you. The trail of devastation was hard to miss. And, oh my goodness, there's actually a robot."

"I told you there would be."

"Hmph. This proves nothing."

"But now that we're all here, it's time to fight back! Freezerburn, now!"

WWW

Jaune Arc, leader of Team JNPR, successor to a line of generations of heroes, was slowing his team down. The blinking light on his scroll representing Ruby's GPS signal was no longer running away, but it wasn't getting any closer either.

"Go on ahead," he said, panting. "I'll catch up."

"We're not leaving you," Pyrrha said. "We're a team."

"We're out of time! Team RWBY stopped running, which means they're fighting, which means they need back up."

"Perhaps we should hail a taxi?" Ren suggested.

"I didn't bring any money," Nora said. "Ooh! Let's hijack one! I'm pretty sure it's legal in an emergency."

"I'm not sure–" Pyrrha started, but Jaune interrupted her.

"You're right!"

"Oh dear," Ren said.

"Perfect!"

"But we're not going to do anything crazy," Jaune said.

"Aw."

"We're going to jump on top of the next truck that passes us by."

They were on the side of the highway with headlights blazing past them, faster than they could run and in the direction they were going. Jaune had been improving steadily since he had started training with Pyrrha, but he still wasn't sure if he could make the jump. Oh well. In a worst case scenario, he'd bounce off the side of the truck, fall into the road, and end up smeared against the pavement before his friends could pull him out of the way.

Okay, the worst case scenario was pretty bad, but it might _not_ happen.

A bright yellow semi-truck came racing up behind them in their closest lane. Well, there was no time like the present to toy with death. "Now!"

Team JNPR took off at a run, and one by one they jumped. Jaune didn't know if it was adrenaline or what, but when he jumped for the truck, he had never felt lighter and his fingers barely made it over the edge of the frame. The sudden tug nearly ripped his arms out of his sockets, but he _held on_.

For about half a second.

"Got you!" Pyrrha's hand came out of nowhere, grabbing onto his wrist and pulling him on board.

He climbed to his feet, but when the wind threatened to blow him off, he fell back into a crouch. At this rate they'd arrive at the fight in a matter of minutes … and then they'd have to jump off. Oh, crap! They were going to have to jump off! Well, in a worst case scenario, he wouldn't activate his Aura in time, sprain his ankle, and be a sitting duck for the rest of the fight.

"Are we there yet?" Nora asked.

"No, Nora," Ren said. "We have not yet arrived."

"Oh. How about now?"

"Still no."

Okay, he could do this. Even without Aura, if he rolled right he'd be fine, even if he was jumping off a moving truck … going fifty miles an hour. Now, why did he think this was a better idea than staying home and sparring with Pyrrha?

Oh, right. Weiss.

Well, he did say that he was going to get a date for the upcoming dance even if it killed him. In retrospect, that was a bad choice of words.

Just as he reached into his pocket to check their ETA, the truck slowed to a stop. Traffic. No, gridlock. Up ahead, a series of car accidents covered every lane on the highway.

"Woah!" Nora said, grinning wildly. "Do you think Ruby's robot did that?"

According to his scroll, they were in about the right spot. "Looks like it." On one hand, they were about to face something that could juggle automobiles, but on the other, Jaune could dismount a stationary vehicle. He'd take it.

After that, it was a short jog to the sounds of battle.

Below them on an intersecting road, Team RWBY and two other guys faced off against an Atlesian Paladin. "Checkmate!" Ruby called out, and Weiss and Blake charged forward, double teaming the machine. Weiss drew a time dilation glyph under Blake, speeding her up enough to counter the Paladin's missile barrage.

"Wow, they have team attacks?" Jaune said. "And they even have cool names, too! Why don't we have those?"

"You are our leader, Jaune," Ren reminded him.

"Oh, right."

"Jaune!" Ruby called out from below. "You made it!" She turned to a boy with blue hair next to her. "Neptune, now!"

"Now what?"

She pointed at Team JNPR. "Hammer girl! Electrocute her!"

"Aren't they on our side?"

" _Yes!_ That's why you need to electrocute her."

"I don't know about this."

"Trust me! Yang, toss him up there, would you?"

"Sure thing, Sis!"

"But–" His protest was cut off as Yang grabbed him, shot herself into the air, and threw him up to the next level, where he landed gracefully on his feet. He looked at Nora apologetically and turned his gun into a spear. "This is not how I usually introduce myself to a pretty girl."

Lightning arced from the end of his weapon and he pressed it against Nora. She inhaled sharply as electricity shot through her, empowering her.

"Oh, wow!" she gasped. "I think I'm going to name you Battery!"

"Do you mean that as the legal term, or …?"

Nora's Semblance allowed her to absorb electrical energy, but how did Ruby know that? Oh well, Nora must have mentioned it sometime. And that meant that it was Team JNPR's time to shine.

"Pyrrha, hold the robot as still as you can," Jaune said. "Nora? Smash."

"Finally!" She hefted Magnhild over her head and jumped off the edge. Pyrrha closed her eyes and focused, her own Semblance covering the Paladin in a black penumbra until Nora's hammer collided with it, shattering it into pieces.

A man in a white suit and a feathered hat emerged from the wreckage. "Oh, great," he muttered. "I just had that suit–"

"Ice Flower!" Ruby fired her sniper rifle through one of Weiss's white glyphs, freezing the man in a block of ice.

"Well, that was easy," Blake said.

"I know," Yang said. "I kind of wish there were a few more, just to make it a challenge."

Jaune looked down and made the jump to their level. It wasn't that much of a fall–okay, thirty feet was more than he was comfortable with, but he had been practicing and he landed in a roll, so he didn't even sprain an ankle. Ren and Pyrrha dropped down after him.

Was this the best time to flirt with Weiss? No, he could flirt later. Now was the time to look cool. "Glad we could help, even if we didn't get here until the last minute."

"Don't let your guard down yet," Ruby warned. "Any second now, Umbrella Girl is going to come out of nowhere and disappear with him."

Jaune looked around. It was dark and the shadows could hide anything, but he couldn't see anyone. "Who?"

"Umbrella girl," Ruby said again. "That's what happened last time we defeated Torchwick's mecha."

Torchwick? Jaune had heard that name on the news before, something about organized crime and Dust heists. "You've done this before?"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "No, Ruby just think's she's from the future."

"Well, I am! How else could I have known about _all_ this?"

Ren frowned thoughtfully. "Time travel still seems unlikely. There must be a more logical explanation."

"Yeah," Nora agreed. "Maybe Ruby's just really, really, really, really smart."

Ren hesitated. "So, time travel. Quite an impressive Semblance. Can you use it consistently, or was it a one time thing?"

"So far I've only been able to use it once," Ruby replied. She looked around. "Umbrella Girl's not showing up. We must have scared her off. Well, there's nothing left to do but turn him over to the proper authorities." She pulled out her scroll and began to dial. "The future is looking _bright_."

"You know," Ren said, "if you really are from the future, you should be cautious of butterfly effects."

"Hello?" she said on her scroll. "Hey, I'd like to report the capture of one Roman Torchwick. No, this is not a prank, it's a citizen's arrest. Also, do you still hand out tee shirts for that? Yes, I can hold." She looked up. "Sorry, what? Butterflies? Ha! It's going to take more than a few butterflies to get in my way!"

No one responded as Ruby resumed her call. Was now the right time to make a move on Weiss? He could walk up next to her, compliment her on her fighting style and maybe … and she was chatting merrily with the guy with blue hair. Oh, that jerk.

"So," the blond guy with a tail said. "I saw a noodle stand on the way here. Anyone else hungry?"

"We should probably wait until the police get here," Pyrrha said. "And while we're waiting, should we carve some air holes into that icecube? Because that Torchwick fellow is turning blue."

"Oh, he's just cold," Ruby said. "He'll be fine."

WWW

Cinder could have hired one of the many seamstresses in Vale to sew Dust into her ballroom gown, but this was something she preferred to do herself.

"Team CRDL won't make it to the singles round," she decided, sitting on her bed. "Who's next?"

"JNPR," Mercury said, lounging on the floor. "Their leader's a bad joke. Either Ozpin knows something we don't, or he appointed Jaune Arc out of pity." Cinder had never met the headmaster, but from what Salem had told her, it was probably both. He had a bleeding heart and a mind with more webs than a horde of spiders. "The only one who stands out is Pyrrha Nikos."

"She had her face on a cereal box for a while," Emerald said. "A regular paragon."

It was never too early to gather information, and was all too often far too late. Most of the competitors were yet to arrive to the Vytal Festival, but the "friendly competition" gave her the excuse to investigate the future guardians. Less fortunately, it made the Huntsmen in training hold their secrets that much closer.

"Look into her," she decided.

"Then there's RWBY," Mercury said. "They're all … above what passes for average around here, but none of them stand out when they're together. They might make it to the singles, but they won't get far."

Mercury was a good fighter, but that was all he was. He didn't have the head for this work. Fortunately, all he needed to do was leave the thinking to her.

"What about the girl with the scythe?" Cinder asked. "And I don't mean just her combat abilities."

"The rest of her team seems as gullible and stupid as everyone else," Emerald said. "But whenever we pass in the hallway, Ruby looks at me like I just murdered all her closest friends."

Cinder raised an eyebrow. "Did you?"

"No."

"You're sure of this?"

"Yes! We haven't killed anyone since we got here," Emerald said. "Besides the book seller, but no one saw us, I swear."

If it had been that simple, law enforcement would have bothered them by now, and Emerald and Mercury knew how to clean up their own messes. "But she's suspicious of us," Cinder mused. Suspicious didn't even cover it. The girl pointed her weapon at them when she recognized Cinder's team, and she _did_ recognize them. Cinder could think of two explanations for that, and neither of them were good.

"She's seen us before," Cinder decided, "or at least she's been given an excellent description. Look into her. I want to know how much she knows and how she knows it. She might just be paranoid and crazy, but we can't risk it."

Just then her scroll buzzed with a message from Neo. Cinder read it and frowned.

"Bad news?" Mercury asked.

"It's Roman," she said. "He was just captured, right after one of his new toys broke."

"How tragic," Emerald said. "Well, easy come, easy go. Do you think he'll talk?"

Cinder shook her head. "He'll talk alright. I doubt he has the capacity for silence, but he's not fool enough to say anything." That did leave the problem of finding a replacement. Neo didn't have the charisma for the position, so she was out. Cinder had better things to do, and Emerald and Mercury needed to continue their investigations. Adam, maybe? Cinder finished the message and smiled.

"What is it?"

"Neo was kind enough to send us a picture of Roman's captors," Cinder said. "And you won't believe who it was."

WWW

A/n Have you seen the episode in the Simpsons where Homer turns a toaster into a time machine, goes back in time, and tries really hard not to change anything and then comes back to a future ruled by Ned Flanders or one where no one knows what a doughnut is, and then he gives up, goes back, and smashes everything he can and the future turns out to be (mostly) normal? That's pretty much Ruby's plan right now, because really, what are a few butterflies going to do?

I'm guessing that while Neo would be willing to fight three people at once (as long as one of them isn't Raven), ten might make her hesitate. Of course, I'm just guessing here because all I know about her abilities are that they lie somewhere between Yang and Yang's scary mother.

Also, I used to think that Yang's bike was called the Yangmobile, but it turns out that it's called Bumblebee. Thank you Ralyx for pointing that out. Between the bike, the ship name, and the team attack things could get confusing, so I'll be sure to specify which one, unless Yang and Blake are on the motorcycle together performing the team attack, in which case Bumblebee would be referring to all three.

Thank you Magery for editing this, and thank you everyone who left a review for leaving a review. If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to leave them. That's what that big box is for at the bottom of the page. And who knows? I might even reply.


	3. Learning the Steps

No Such Thing as Destiny

Chapter Three

Learning the Steps

In a world of Huntsmen and Huntresses, it was easy to feel obsolete as a humble police officer, but Officer Krieg had a job to do, and what he lacked in flair he made up for in dependability.

"Just a few more questions, and I'll let you kids go." And they were kids, ten of them. Students from Beacon, mostly likely. "How did you run into Torchwick?" Torchwick, still on ice, was being loaded into a Bullhead. No handcuffs, but he'd be fine until he melted, and there was a full Huntsmen on board because Vale didn't trust the common police officer to do much besides wear the uniform and do paperwork.

"We got lucky," one of them said. She had long black hair, yellow eyes, and a bow. "We were just in the right place at the right time." That was always a lie, but he didn't expect transparency. He wrote down on his scroll the words, "Meddling kids."

One of the others, a girl in a red cape, sniggered. "Time." Inside joke?

"Well, on behalf of Vale, I'd like to thank you for doing your civic duty."

Red Cape sniggered again. "Duty."

Officer Krieg ignored her. "I imagine he was responsible for the wanton destruction on the highway."

"Yup," a monkey Faunus said. He had blond hair and his shirt was unbuttoned. "Totally him. We had nothing to do with it."

Officer Krieg doubted it. Huntsmen, even amateur Huntsmen, could catch a crook, but very few of them worried about collateral damage. He decided not to press the issue.

"Did he say anything that could hint at how he obtained an Atlesian Paladin?" Remnant was enjoying a time of peace, but that didn't stop people from feeling nervous about inviting a foreign armada into their borders, and Lieutenant Mandolin would want to know how a wanted criminal got his hands on Atlas military property.

"No," Red Cape said. "But he did say that he had a secret base in the southwest."

"Southeast," Black Hair said.

"Really?" Red Cape said.

"Yes, Ruby, I was the one there."

"Right. It's in the southeast in an abandoned city, underground in the caves. There's a train full of bombs that he's planning on using to make a way for Grimm into the city."

Judging by the looks of Red Cape's friends– _Ruby's_ friends–this was news to them as well. "And Torchwick told you all of this?"

"He was, um, monologuing," Ruby said. "A lot. Seriously, he does not shut up."

Officer Krieg jotted down a few notes. They were hiding plenty, he knew, but Vale turned a blind eye to vigilantism as long as it got results. "Was there anything else?"

"Yeah," Blonde Monkey said. "So, is there a reward for this guy or something?"

A boy with blue hair elbowed him. "Dude, don't be lame."

"I wasn't being lame, I was just asking."

"Dude, really."

Officer Krieg made a final note before closing his scroll. "I'll look into it."

WWW

Running into Torchwick the first time at the Dust shop was what got Ruby enrolled in Beacon in the first place. That night long ago changed her life forever. Capturing him changed, well, nothing. She continued taking classes, getting ready for the Vytal Festival, and doing all the things she was doing already.

Although she did get mentioned in the Vale police beat. She cut it out of the newspaper and was going to frame it when she had time. Or at least laminate it. Okay, she was going to take a picture of it before she forgot. Not only was it a capture of a wanted criminal, it was the first success at changing the future, proof that destiny could be changed.

Unfortunately, she found out in class a few days later, she wasn't the only one changing things.

It started out with a friendly sparring match between Pyrrha and all four members of Team CRDL. Pyrrha fought alone, unbowed, and unbroken. She was not the strongest student at the academy, not the fastest, and not even the most dangerous. Not compared to the woman who killed her. But there was not one amongst them who could come close to _comprehending_ her mastery of war.

She crushed CRDL with sheer, unrelenting perfection. There was more skill in any single one of her movements than in any single one of her _opponents_. She moved like a shadow and struck like a storm, and by the time she slammed Cardin face-first into the floor, they still hadn't landed a hit on her without her consent.

"And that's the match," Professor Goodwitch said. She sounded approving, but not excessively impressed. Ruby guessed that after becoming a full Huntress, being able to beat up a team of first-year students wasn't that great. "Well done, Miss Nikos. You should have no problem qualifying for the Tournament."

"Thank you, Professor."

"Alright, I know that's a tough act to follow, but we have time for one more sparring match. Any volunteers?"

Everyone went silent and avoided eye contact with the teacher. No one wanted to reveal all their tricks before it really mattered. Ruby considered volunteering–her scythe didn't depend on secrecy–but she had been in the limelight a lot recently, and she wanted to give someone else a turn.

"I'll do it," Mercury said. Exchange students like him weren't required to attend classes at Beacon, but they were welcome. At least, until they turned out to be super villains trying to destroy everything, but until then, they were "guests." He sounded bored, like he was volunteering on a whim, but Ruby knew better. It was all part of his evil plan for world domination. Or maybe he really was just bored and wanted to fight someone. She could relate to that.

"Mercury, is it?" Professor Goodwitch said, scanning her scroll. "Very well. Let's find you an opponent."

"Actually," Mercury said, "I want to fight … her." Ruby looked up and saw his finger pointing right at her.

She blinked. "Huh?" She couldn't remember all the details of her first run through this week, but she never fought Mercury until the end of the Tournament. It had been the day after Yang had been disqualified for breaking his leg when Ruby found him walking around, perfectly fine.

"I would advise against that," Professor Goodwitch said. "Why don't we find you someone more suitable."

"Wait," Ruby said. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Professor Goodwitch shot her a glance, mildly annoyed at the interruption. "According to his transcripts, Mercury here excels at close-ranged combat, while you, Miss Rose, are better equipped for long-ranged fighting."

"So, are you saying that he can't win, or I can't win?"

"I am saying that you would be at a disadvantage in one-on-one combat."

 _One-on-one._ As long as she had her team with her, she couldn't lose. She took her role as team leader seriously, and ever since she got the position, all her thoughts and daydreams revolved around how to make the four of them work together as a single unit, but she hadn't been able to win a _one-on-one_ fight since.

"Crescent Rose is a scythe, too," she said. "That's really what most people notice first."

Professor looked at her with exasperation. "Are you saying that you want to fight him?"

Ruby looked at Mercury, and he looked back so smugly it should have been criminal. He was smug back then, too, when he was stalling her just long enough for Penny to die. The only time he wasn't smug was when Yang broke his leg, and even then it was a trick, a lie that turned countless people against her. Ruby didn't have Crescent Rose with her when she fought him that day, but she did now.

Did she want to fight him? "Yes."

Professor Goodwitch shrugged. "Well, experience is the best teacher, even if she is the harshest. Come on down, you two."

Mercury jumped down into the arena and smiled at her as though he had already won. _We'll see._ Ruby dropped into the arena too and unfolded her scythe.

"Break a leg, Sis!" Yang called down.

 _I'm planning on it._

"Begin!"

Ruby shot a gravity round behind her, launching herself forward with the recoil. She'd always said that she was a different person when she was fighting, and that was true. In any other setting she could trip over her own two feet or any two words, but as soon as the fight started, she was a red blur, a whirlwind of rose petals. When she fought, she didn't just wield Crescent Rose–Crescent Rose wielded her.

Mercury backed away, dodging her attacks one step at a time. He stayed close–he was, after all, a close range fighter, so the moment she exposed a weakness he needed to be nearby to exploit it. He struck, hitting the side of her blade with his foot, upsetting her rhythm. He followed up with a second kick, but Ruby fired again, shooting herself backwards.

He was fast. Not as fast as she was, not when she used her Semblance at least, but still fast. A contest of speed wasn't a sure win, and neither was melee. Well, Professor Goodwitch had said that he wasn't that good at ranged-attacks, so all that was left was to kite him.

She pointed her sniper rifle at him and fired again and again. He dodged and closed the distance, going back and forth in a zigzag pattern. Ruby shot herself backwards and kept firing. She even managed to hit him a few times, but it wasn't enough. He shot himself into the air and nearly landed on top of her. Right, because his boots were also guns.

Ruby shot herself back, and the fight became more a matter of keeping away from him than fighting back–until he fired a shot not behind him, but _at_ her. She stumbled backwards as her Aura absorbed the blow, and before she could regain her footing he was practically on top of her. He grabbed onto the haft of her scythe, and kicked it out of her hands.

Her friends on the stands groaned as though she had already lost, and even Ruby had to admit she was at a disadvantage. She depended on her weapon, and she didn't have any unarmed combat training like Yang did.

"Wow," Mercury said. "This actually is as heavy as it looks. A bit unwieldy if you ask me." He held the scythe–clutched her Crescent Rose in his filthy, bloodstained hands–and smiled.

"Well," Professor Goodwitch said. "It looks like the match goes to–"

"I'm not done yet!" Ruby said. Weapon or no weapon, her Aura wasn't depleted, and she wasn't going to give up a moment sooner.

The professor sighed. "Suit yourself."

Mercury smirked. "Alright then, Little Red. Show me what your last resort looks like."

Ruby glared at him–and disappeared in a burst of rose petals. Mercury reacted quickly and tried to closeline her with a kick. Again. In their first fight, his reflexes had caught her by surprise, but to her, he was a rerun of a show that had barely been worth watching the first time. She ducked under his leg, and the wind from her passing knocked him backwards, and for the first time since the match began, he lost his footing.

Without Crescent Rose, she couldn't break her momentum until she reached the edge of the arena, but at the speed she was going, it didn't matter. She jumped off the wall and, maintaining her Semblance, darted back. Mercury, already off balance, was lifted off the ground by the slipstream. The third time around, she grabbed Crescent Rose out of his hands. The fourth time she passed him, she spun the scythe and hit him square in the chest.

Her Semblance took more out of her than she ever let on, and she'd never gone this fast for this long. She'd never needed to. But Mercury had shamed Yang in front of thousands, and he'd helped kill Penny. If there was anything she had the strength left for, it was this.

Someone shouted something, but it wasn't important. She tuned out everything except the fight. Her world had only one other person in it, and he was already twisting in the air to recover his equilibrium.

 _Not this time_.

He was fast, but Ruby was faster. She was _always_ faster. Her scythe was an extension of her soul, but her speed, her Semblance, was her soul itself. Other Huntsmen and Huntresses had endurance and power, but when Ruby ran, she could make the world stop. She could make it _change._ In another world, another future, Yang lay on the ground, her arm ending in a crudely wrapped stump, but …

 _Not this time._ She was going to change things. She was going to change _everything_.

She darted behind Mercury, the blade of her scythe catching the inside of his knee. Mercury's other foot kicked backwards, right at her, but he might as well have been moving through tar.

Ruby didn't know how much Aura her opponent had left, but she knew she couldn't keep up her speed much longer. She fired a gravity round to make her strike count for as much as she could make it–and Crescent Rose came free.

 _What?_ Had he somehow maneuvered … no. His leg had come off entirely, severed as cleanly as a bubble bath. She slowed and skidded to a stop, her knees feeling like jelly and her everything feeling drained like never before, but she had _won_.

Then the world snapped back to reality, and suddenly winning was _not_ the only thing that mattered. Mercury hit the ground in pieces. Despite his injuries, he did not scream. His eyes were wide in shock, but not pain. She heard a dull clank of metal against stone as his ruined prosthetic landed beside him, bolts spilling out from the impact.

All around the two of them, rose petals drifted to the floor, so many it looked like the sky rained blood.

And there was Professor Goodwitch, glaring at her , and Ruby realized that she had been the one who had been speaking. The crowd above looked down in a stunned stupor until Yang broke the silence.

"It looks like someone's been drinking a lot of milk."

WWW

Ruby sat in Professor Goodwitch's office, trying not to fidget. She wasn't succeeding. It would have been a lot easier if the professor had been a bit less livid.

"What is wrong with you, girl?" she said, pacing. "Do you not understand the point of a _sparring_ match? You do not maim your opponent in a sparring match!"

"Well, he can get that repaired, right?" After the fight, Emerald gathered up the pieces of Mercury's mechanical leg and helped him back to their room.

"Yes. _Fortunately_ Mercury will suffer no long term consequences, having already lost that leg once. But tell me, Ruby, _did you know that_?"

"Um …" She knew that he had been able to walk a day after his leg had been broken, but at the time, she only thought that he had pretended to be hurt instead of having a robotic limb. "Not really?"

"No," Professor Goodwitch said as she sat down. "No, I did not think so. Still, I have decided not to expel you."

Ruby blinked, unaware that expulsion had even been on the table. "Oh. Um, thanks?"

"You will, however, be banned from the Vytal Festival Tournament."

Ruby's head jerked up. "What? You can't do that!"

Professor Goodwitch looked at her, her face devoid of emotion. "You do not think before you act, Miss Rose, and seldom bother to do so afterwards. I urge you to consider thinking now."

Ruby sank into her chair as far as she could. "Okay, you _can_ , but still … I'll stop talking now."

Professor Goodwitch shot her with a flat stare and a merciless wave of silence. The silence taunted her, tormented her, _screamed_ at her–for about five seconds. "The Vytal Festival is an opportunity for the different Huntsman Academies to meet in a friendly competition, and each participant is a representative. When you win, you win for Beacon. When you lose, you lose for Beacon. And when you deliberately maim and injure your opponent? You declare war. Do you understand, Miss Rose?"

Ruby bit her lip, knowing that she was a few careless words away from putting expulsion back on the table, and she was _not_ going to get expelled from Beacon at a younger age than most people got accepted. "Is there anything I can do to make you change your mind?"

Professor Goodwitch sighed. "You don't get second chances, Miss Rose. No one does. It's time you learned that."

But she was wrong. Ruby knew it wouldn't do her any good to say it, but Professor Goodwitch was wrong. Ruby was _living_ her second chance, and if she managed to save Penny and Pyrrha and prevent the attack on Beacon, then she'd consider it a win no matter what else happened.

Still, how was she going to tell her team?

WWW

"I'm going to just do it all at once and just say it, you know? Rip off the bandaid and all that. No stalling, no dancing around the issue, just the cold, hard facts."

"Right," Weiss said, sitting at her desk. All four members of Team RWBY were in their dormroom. "Because the alternative would be long and tedious."

"I'm serious," Ruby said. "You mean a lot to me, you all do, and it wouldn't be right for me, after all we've been through, to keep this from you guys."

"Are you coming out of the closet?" Yang asked. "It's okay, sis, we already know."

"No, I got kicked out of the Vytal Tournament," she said. "Wait, why did you think that–"

"You _what_?" Weiss shrieked. "How did that happen?"

"Well, Professor Goodwitch dragged me into her office and suddenly I was banned."

"She _banned_ you? I thought you were just going to get detention for a few years."

Ruby grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, I guess she takes this sort of thing real seriously."

"To be fair," Yang said, sitting on the floor leaning against her bed, "your fight with whatshisname was seriously hardcore and not suitable for children."

Weiss turned on her. "This isn't a joke, Yang, this is serious."

"Yeah, you're right," Yang said. "Kids would have gotten a huge kick out of that, unlike that Haven guy who got his kicks cut off."

Weiss glowered at her. "Okay, first of all, not funny. Second of all, his name is Mercury. If we're going to dismember him, we ought to do him the courtesy of dismembering him by name. Third of all, and most importantly, not funny."

Yang chuckled. "Yeah, I'll take your advice on humor after you crack a joke, Ice Queen. But seriously, Ruby, what _is_ going on?"

Ruby swallowed. "That is what happened. I got kicked out."

"Uh-huh, yeah, very funny. Weiss fell for it, I laughed, and Blake … Blaked. But for real this time, what's up?"

"That … is what's up. Professor Goodwitch said that I'm not allowed to be in the Vytal Tournament."

"No she didn't," Yang said. "No she _didn't_!" She stood up. " _Aargh!_ Who does she think she is, that she can just throw you out like this?" She looked around the room for something that wasn't too fragile for her to hit, and ended up pounding her fist into her palm.

"It's a circus act," Blake said, lying on her bed. "The whole Vytal Festival is. It's a chance for people to buy overpriced souvenirs, watch amateur fights, and eat overpriced popcorn, and then they go home and do the same thing next year. It's a waste of time."

"It is not!" Weiss protested. "It was supposed to be a chance to show our friends and … and other friends how much we've learned here! I was going to prove that I didn't make a mistake coming here, not that I'm on Team Delinquent!"

Ruby winced. Weiss had been so excited when Winter had shown up to watch the tournament, and while Ruby remembered that, this timeline's Weiss would never get that chance. _Saving the future, one screw up at a time._

Yang shook her head. "No. No way. I am not giving up just yet. When you have a problem and hitting it doesn't work, you just have to hit it harder. Only the first round needs all four members, so all we need to do is hope we get matched against a team that kicks three-fourths as much butt as we do, and that's, what, ninety percent of them, right?"

"Wow," Weiss said. "Arrogant much?"

"This coming from you?"

"Yes, this coming from me. _I_ am merely confident."

"And _I_ am merely content that our first match will actually be a challenge instead of a curbstomp, so thanks, Ruby, for taking the fall for the team to make things interesting."

Ruby looked up and let herself smile. "What can I say? I'm a natural."

"So it's settled then," Yang said.

"Not quite," Blake said, sitting up. "There's one more thing. I want to know what really happened in that match. That wasn't you. You're not usually that violent."

Ruby frowned. "What are you talking about? I'm plenty violent!"

"No," Blake said. "Usually when you fight, you're just playing. It's a game you're good at, but it's still a game to you. Today against Mercury, you wanted to _hurt_ him. I've never seen you like that before."

That was true. Ruby had killed plenty of Grimm before, but she couldn't bring herself to hate them. They were monsters, and without monsters, what was the point of becoming a Huntress? Roman Torchwick was a challenge for her, something to test her skills against, but fighting him had never been as personal for her as it had been for Blake.

But Torchwick had always been honest about who he was instead of pretending to be a friend, and he had _never_ killed someone Ruby cared about. She remembered Mercury stopping her, smirking at her, stalling her while Penny died. _That_ had been his game, to kill her friends and destroy her home … and Ruby was done playing.

"He's evil," Ruby said. "His whole team is."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "You can't be so judgemental about people you've never met before."

"Do you let that high horse stay in your glass house with you?" Yang asked. "Or does it have a glass barn too?"

"I have met him!" Ruby protested. "In the future–"

"Oh, no."

"In the future, they get Yang disqualified, hack the robot army, unleash Grimm into the city, and … and you're all giving me that look again."

That look was a mixture of annoyance, frustration, and avoiding eye contact which Ruby had been seeing more and more.

Weiss sighed. "So, does anyone else want to do it, or am I stuck being the bad guy again?"

"We do call you Ice Queen for a reason," Yang said.

"Fine, fine. Ruby, stop it."

"But I'm not–"

"Stop. It. You need to get you head out of the clouds and back in the present. You're not from the future, you're just stupid, and this game, delusion, I don't know what it is, it has already gotten us in enough trouble. You need to cut it out before you screw up anything else."

WWW

"She's going to screw up something else, isn't she?"

"What, after that compassionate and encouraging talk you gave her?" Yang said. "You know, the one that did _absolutely_ nothing?"

"I wouldn't say it did nothing," Blake said. "Now she will no longer come to us if she needs help. So, progress. Yay."

It was the next morning, and Ruby was in the shower, leaving the rest of the team free to …

"So we've been reduced to talking about her behind her back now," Weiss said.

Yang shook her head. "No. No we're not."

"We kind of are," Blake said.

"No, we're doing the exact opposite. We're plotting an intervention for her behind her back. That's totally different and totally okay. Because if she's not going to come to us for help, we'll have to bring the help to her, whether she knows about it or not."

"Okay, fine," Weiss said. "So, Yang, you know her best. What do you think is the best way to get her to accept psychiatric help?"

Yang gave her a flat look. "Weiss, remember when we spent that one weekend looking for Blake and you wanted to just turn her into the police?"

Blake looked up. "Wait, what?"

"Not my proudest moment, so thank you for bringing it up every chance you get."

"And remember how you felt like such a jerk when you realized what a big jerk you had been the whole time?"

"Is there a point to this?"

"Well, this is your chance to do the exact opposite!" Yang said. "Besides, we're her friends. We're far more qualified to help Ruby out of her whatever than any shrink."

"I don't think that's true," Weiss said. "But for the sake of brevity, let's skip the part where I futilely try to convince you otherwise and go straight to the part where I give into whatever you have in place of a plan."

"Perfect!" The shower was still going. Ruby usually took fast showers, unless she was upset about something. "So I was making up some psychobabble last night while I was falling asleep, and I had an idea. Why is Ruby so obsessed with the future? Because the present is boring. It's tedious, it's dull, midterms are coming up, the present sucks. The future is where it's at! In the future, we're all full Huntresses, saving the world and punching evil in the face."

"I got the impression she was dreading the future," Blake said.

Yang shrugged. "Same thing. Anyway, if we want her to stop thinking about the future, then we need to make present worth focusing on. Any ideas?"

"Well, there's the Tournament coming up," Weiss said. "But I don't think that will help. More immediately, there's the dance. Ruby likes formal dances, doesn't she?"

Yang started laughing. "Wait, are you serious? I don't think she's ever been to one. Last time Signal had one, she was too busy upgrading her scythe."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "That is so her. Still, all we need to do is get her to focus on the dance instead of getting expelled, and we've saved the present. She does know how to dance, doesn't she?"

"I'm going to have to assume she doesn't."

"Yes, well, she did blow me up when we first met. I imagine she'd be a disaster on the dance floor. A blood bath if she went in stilettos. I assume making her able to feign civility and refinement is my job, then?"

Yang shrugged. "I sure don't want to do it."

Weiss sighed. "Fine. Other than that, all that remains is getting her a date, because I foresee her hiding behind the punch bowl all night until she finds a way to get into trouble."

"Sounds about right," Yang agreed. "So, who do we know who's single? There's Jaune. He's nice."

Weiss made a face. "Ruby may be uncoordinated, clumsy, and socially incompetent, but she can do way better than him."

"Ren? Are he and Nora officially a couple yet, or are they still unofficially a couple?"

"Either way, they're still a couple."

"Who else do we know? Team CRDL, but they're …"

"Four options worse than Jaune."

Yang looked at Blake. "I'm guessing Sun is already going with someone, right?"

Blake looked away. "He might not."

"And I might become a butterfly." Yang snapped her fingers. "How about his teammate? Neptune. He seems … blue-haired."

"You know what," Weiss said quickly. "We're overthinking this. Why don't we just set her up with Jaune?"

"I thought you said–"

"I say a lot of things! Jaune's fine!"

WWW

"Jaune!" Yang called out after class. "We need to talk."

He followed her out into the hall, or rather she grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him into the hall as though he were a pencil she had found lying on a desk. His teammates did nothing to help, though Nora gave him a thumbs up.

"Okay, what is it?"

"Word on the street is that you're totally single, and desperate to change that by Sunday. I'm here to help."

Jaune hesitated, unsure about how much to read into that. He decided to play it safe and read as little as possible, though even that little was dangerous. He had asked Ren for advice on girls earlier instead of his two female teammates, because asking a girl for advice on girls was like asking a Beowolf advice on how to not get eaten.

"I was planning on asking out Weiss," he said.

"You already did that. She said no."

"I was planning on asking again? Hey, you know her better than I do. Is there a way I could ask her that would get her to say yes?" Pyrrha had suggested that he be honest and sincere as he could, which would work with someone as honest and sincere as Pyrrha, but Weiss might prefer something more stylistic.

"That's easy. Just be someone else."

"Right! Um, can I do that? I don't think I can do that."

"You can't, but you can ask someone else," Yang said. She grinned. "And that's where I come in."

"You think I should ask you?" Jaune didn't know if he should have felt thrilled or terrified.

She burst out laughing. "Oh man, that's–ha ha–that's a good one."

"Yeah, that was a joke," Jaune said. "You know, break the tension."

Her laughter died down. Eventually. "Right. Where was I? Oh yeah. Why don't you ask out Ruby? She doesn't have a date yet either, and you two know each other, so you've got that going for you."

"Ruby?" He had never considered her. She was cute alright, but she seemed more like the sort of girl who would enjoy long walks through the woods at night slaughtering Grimm rather than go to a dance.

"Unless you think you can do better." There was an edge to her voice, just beneath her smile.

"No! Not that. I'm just surprised that, uh, that you'd be okay with me asking her out."

She scoffed. "That's okay. You're harmless."

"I'm … harmless?"

She nodded. "Completely harmless."

"I wouldn't say _completely_. You could argue _mostly_ harmless, but–"

"Semantics shemantics. Now, me, Weiss, and Blake–well, mostly me and Weiss because Blake thinks that this is really dumb–we're scheming this whole thing, so do exactly what we tell you, and Ruby will fall right into your arms."

WWW

Ruby looked down at her feet, realizing that she had lost control of her life. It was ironic, really. Her friends wanted to get her head out of the clouds and keep her feet grounded firmly in reality, and their solution? To put her in stupid lady stilts so her feet were several inches off the ground at all times. _Brilliant._

"Now," Weiss said, walking down the hall at her side. "The secret to becoming accustomed to heels is grace, poise, and practice. You don't have any of the first two, so we'll just have to cram in as much of the third as we can."

Ruby took a step and wobbled. The wobble started in her feet, shook her knees, went up to her hips, hit her shoulders–causing her to lash out at anything she could grab onto ("Ow! Watch it!")–and ended with her head. "Don't I get a say in this?"

"Good question," Weiss said. "No."

"Oh." Weiss had, for reasons only she understood, taken it upon herself to turn Ruby into a lady in time for the dance. Ruby had told her that she wasn't interested, and Weiss had asked her what that had to do with anything, and suddenly they were here, walking down the hall in high heels. "So, is there a point to this?"

"Two, actually," Weiss said. "So be careful not to step on anyone's feet."

Ruby gasped. "Wait, is _Yang_ involved in this?"

Weiss looked away quickly. "No! I … I made that pun up myself."

"Oh my gosh, she is!" She'd recognize her sister's signature comedy anywhere, and Yang had stabbed her right in the back with high heeled shoes. "Is this some elaborate scheme to–to fancy dance me? Is Blake involved?"

"As if we could get Blake to help us out with anything that didn't involve getting us into trouble! Um, if there was anything to involve her with. Also, you're being paranoid, Ruby. We're your friends, so you should trust us more."

"Yeah, but–"

"Also, have you noticed that staircase?"

Ruby looked at the staircase that had been there her entire stay at Beacon. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It's a trust fall. It's a great trust building exercise."

Ruby frowned. "I think a trust fall is–"

"Good luck!"

"What?"

Weiss shoved her. If Ruby had been wearing her boots, she would have just shoved her back, but in heels she could barely walk in, she fell, rolled, and crashed her way to the bottom, cursing Weiss' name with every step.

"I–hate– _umph_ –you–"

"I got you!" Jaune's voice. Where had he come from?

" _Omp!_ "

"I–don't–got–"

"– _ow_ –so–"

"–you!"

"–much!"

She ran out of steps and stopped at the bottom, tangled up with Jaune like a two-person pretzel.

"Ow," she said.

"Ow," he agreed.

"My landing strategy needs work." She should have activated her semblance. That would have … either solved things for her, or made them a whole lot worse.

"I need to work on my rescue strategy," he said. He shifted. "Hey, Ruby, are you wearing knives on your shoes?"

"Yup."

" _Why_ are you wearing knives on your shoes? You nearly killed me."

"Weiss _tried_ to kill me."

"Did she try to kill me too?"

"No. I think you were just collateral damage."

"Dang it. Just when I was starting to think she cared. Hey, could you get off of me?"

"Nope. Could you get off of me?"

Jaune shifted again. "How are we on top of each other? We look like M. C. Escher tried to teach jiu jitsu."

"I know what some of those words mean," Ruby said. "Okay, here's the plan. You try to roll that way, I'll slither this way, and hopefully something will happen." They made a few lurching motions, trying not to kick the other too hard in the face, and finally they broke apart. "See? Piece of cake."

"The cake tastes like pain and awkwardness."

"That's what adventure tastes like." Ruby considered trying to stand up, but decided not to push her luck and ended up sitting on the floor with her back to a wall. "So, what's up with you? Are you dreading the dance this Sunday as much as I am?"

"Oh, uh, you haven't gotten a date yet either?"

She shook her head. "Nope. I figure I'll just hide out behind the punch bowl until I get the chance to beat up bad guys." That was what she had done last time. She hadn't realized it at the time, but that was her first interaction with Cinder. Well, she'd be ready for her this time. Somehow.

"That's one thing you could do," Jaune said. "Though it's funny that you brought it up, because I was wondering if maybe, this Sunday–"

"Yeah, sure, totally."

He hesitated. "Really? Huh, that was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Thanks, Ruby."

"No problem." She tried to push herself to her feet by backing against the wall, but she only got a few inches before falling back down. "And good luck. I think you two would be really good together."

He blinked. "What? You two? Me and who?"

"Um, wasn't that what you were asking?"

"I don't think so. What were you answering?"

"If you should ask out Pyrrha. That wasn't what you were asking?" Though now that she thought of it, why _would_ Jaune ask her about asking out Pyrrha? There had to be plenty of people more qualified.

"No, I was asking … and I can't ask out _Pyrrha Nikos_!"

"Why not? What's wrong with her?"

"Nothing's wrong with her," he said. "That's what's wrong with her."

Ruby nodded. "Oh, I get it it. Because um, what?"

"Okay, I can explain. See, Pyrrha is up here." He held a hand up in the air. "And me? I'm down here." He held his other hand closer to the floor. "See?"

Ruby looked at the two hands. "No, I think you have it backwards."

"What?"

"Yeah. I remember whenever you two are standing next to each other, you're actually a little bit taller than her." Pyrrha was one of the tallest girls in the school, but Jaune had a few inches on her.

"What? No, no, I'm not talking about height, I'm talking about, um, social standing. Yeah, that. She's a good friend and I like her a lot, but she is too far of my league for me to ask her out."

Ruby narrowed her eyes. "Explain."

"Seriously? Okay, how should I put this? See, everyone in the school has a social standing, popularity level, or whatever you want to call it based off of how cool they are, how many friends they have, that sort of thing. It's kind of like a competition, because if you end up going out with someone of the same level, you've passed, if you end up with someone better than you, you've won, and if you get stuck with someone lower than you, then you've lost."

Ruby frowned. "That's dumb."

"Well, I don't make the rules, but–"

"No, seriously. That's dumb. Really, really dumb. So if you're at the bottom of this, this thing, then–"

"Then you're pretty much going to die alone, yeah."

"And if you're at the top …"

"Like Pyrrha."

"Then …

"Then you're going to need to fend guys off with a stick."

"And no matter who you've ended up with, you've lost."

"Um …"

"It's like saying that you can't fight those Beowolves, because they're too easy for you. You have to stick with the Ursai, and only the Ursai, and don't even think about going near that Nevermore, because it's too much for you."

"To be fair, I don't think I could handle a Nevermore by myself, but you're oversimplifying this."

"How could I make this any simpler than it already is? Your team has two boys and two girls. That's a problem that solves itself."

"Okay, this is not how I planned this conversation, but–"

Ruby frowned. "Who plans conversations?"

"A lot of people, but let's say that I did ask Pyrrha to the dance. Do you know what would happen?"

Ruby thought about that. "She'd say yes?"

"Exactly. You see the problem, don't you?"

"Um …"

"Of course you don't."

"Nope."

"She wouldn't say yes because she likes me, she'd say yes because she feels sorry for me."

"She feels sorry for you?"

Jaune gave her a flat look. "If I tried to ask her out, I guarantee you that she would."

"Huh. So, who is she going with then?"

He shrugged. "Beats me. She's gorgeous, kind, got her face on a cereal box, and is stronger than most graduates. I bet half the school wants to ask her out–not half the boys, half the school–so she's welcome to take her pick."

Ruby frowned. "I'm not sure about that. I mean, you know, her _knees_."

"Her … knees?"

Ruby nodded. "She has bee's knees."

"Bee's knees?"

"Yup. I had those when I first got here, and it was horrible."

"Oh, bee's knees. I … I didn't know people still used that phrase. You were the bee's knees?"

"Uh-huh. Way too many joints, and even now when I talk to someone new, the first thing they say is, 'Aren't you a little young to be going to Beacon?' And the second thing is always, 'You got admitted early? That is so neat!'" She made a zombie face. "But you know who doesn't think I have bee's knees? My friends, because your friends are always normal no matter how weird they are."

"Huh. So … you don't think anyone's going to ask her?"

"For her autograph? Sure. To dance? Well, if Ren's going with Nora, and you're … being you, probably not."

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Wow. I … I never thought about it like that." He stood up. "Good luck finding someone for Sunday."

"Thanks, but I'm planning on just going by myself and catching someone there."

"Oh. Well, I'm sure there's a nice boy waiting for you."

She grinned. "Actually, I'm hoping for a bad girl."

He blinked. "Oh? Oh! Okay then. Um, good for you."

She nodded. "Yup. She's a supervillain."

"Huh?"

"And I'm gonna beat her up!"

He opened his mouth and closed it a few times. "You know what, I'm sure that makes sense in some sort of context, so you … you keep on being you. I need to go think about what you said. Earlier, not what you said just now."

"'Kay, but first, could you give me a hand up? Heels manage to turn everything into an obstacle course without any of the fun stuff."

He pulled her to her feet. "Yeah, the secret is to step toe-heel instead of heel-toe. In some ways it's easier to walk backwards."

She stared at him. "How would you know that?"

He looked away quickly. "I don't need to answer that question! I, uh, I need to go. Right now. Good talk." He started walking away.

"Wait, hold on! There's one more thing I forgot. If you're not sure about asking her out, put on a dress first."

"Oh, ha ha."

"I'm serious! Last time at the dance, you were wearing a suit and tie like normal, right?"

He gave her a flat look. "In your other future?"

She was getting tired of seeing that expression whenever she brought up her Cassandraific predictions. "Yes, in my other future. Anyway, you were dressed normal, then you left, came back in a dress for some reason, and spent the rest of the night dancing with Pyrrha."

He stared at her, wide eyed. "What?"

Ruby shrugged. "I never did ask you why, but Pyrrha seemed happy, so it must have worked."

His mouth hung open. "So, you're telling me that Pyrrha went to the dance alone, and I wore a dress."

"Yup. That about covers it."

"That's weird, because I was just telling her the other night that if she couldn't … then I would … _oh my gosh, you really are from the future!_ "

"That's what I've been telling everyone!"

WWW

A/n And that's chapter three. Just a disclaimer, everything I know about walking in high heels comes from a single episode of the Simpsons, to take Jaune's advice with a grain of salt. I also don't know a whole lot about dating, so you should probably take Ruby's advice with the appropriate condiments as well.

I probably should stop juggling five stories at once and focus on one or two until I finish them off or ready to abandon them for good, but I'm really just a horrible person completely oblivious to his own limitations, and I have no intention of wising up anytime soon.

Thank you everyone who left a review, you're all wonderful people. And thank you Magery for editing. You're and extra wonderful person. And everyone who has read without reviewing, well, you're still okay.


	4. Running out of Time

No Such Thing as Destiny

Chapter Four

Running out of Time

"Welcome to the dance! The punch bowl is over there in that corner, and the dance floor is everywhere else. Enjoy your evening."

Ruby said every word with a smile, and she had repeated each of those words so many times she had them memorized. They had spent all week getting the dance ready for the school, and they only had to keep it going for a few more hours. Weiss was making sure the flower arrangements were still arranged, and Ruby was the Official Assistant Greeter, which meant it was her task to cheerfully greet everyone who walked through the double doors until they stopped coming.

Or until Yang finished her dance with Blake. She was the Official Head Greeter. Important role, that, lots of responsibility. After only a few minutes Ruby was already bored out of her mind.

"Welcome to the dance! The punch bowl is—hey, it's you guys!" She wobbled around the Official Greeter's Podium on her evil heels of evil when she realized it was Team JNPR who had just come through the doors. "Jaune, Ren, you're wearing matching suits, they look good. Pyrrha, it's great to see you!"

Pyrrha was practically glowing with a smile on her face. Even now, Ruby's heart broke a little each time she saw her, and she felt a twinge of guilt over not being able to save her back then—but now, Pyrrha was _happy_. That meant something, right?

"And Nora," Ruby continued, "you—"

"You!" Nora said, bearing down on her.

"Me?"

"You! I know what you did." Nora grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her smack on the lips.

"Bwaa!"

"Good job!" With that, Nora continued on with her usual spring in her step as though nothing odd had happened.

"What did I do?" Ruby demanded. She would have fallen over if Ren hadn't been there to steady her. "Because I can change, honest!"

"It's best not to think too much about the reasons behind her actions,," Ren said. "She's highly secretive by nature."

Ruby wiped her mouth on her arm. "She is?"

Ren hesitated. "Sorry, that was a secret. I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"Okay, I'll just hide behind my podium again." She stood there with a deathgrip on the mahogany framing until the song ended and Yang came back from her dance.

"Hey, Ruby, did I miss anything?"

"I just had the most terrifying bi-curious experience of my life."

"Neat. Go have another."

"What?"

"I'm serious. The night's still young. I can handle the meet 'n greet till you get back."

"But—"

Yang made a shooing motion with her hand. "Go."

Ruby looked at the crowd of people dancing in the center of the hall. _Dancing._ Ha. No, she had seen these people dance, all through the tournament. Eight, four, two people bound together by their will to win, fighting with their weapons, training, instincts, and dreams; past and future brought to bear in a single moment. _That_ was a dance. _This_ was a game with rules Ruby had never learned.

"Okay, but if I manage to have fun, will you help me take down a supervillain tonight?" Ruby asked.

"What?"

"Yeah, there's a supervillain attacking the CCT tonight. Wanna help save the future?"

Yang rolled her eyes. "I'll think about it."

Ruby turned away and stomped her feet as much as she could without twisting an ankle. "That just means no."

"Love ya too, sis!"

Yang was off the list. She liked fighting, but she liked a lot of other things too, and fancy dance parties were less common than climatic battles. Ruby peered through the crowd, looking for Blake. Blake had been kind of sour about the whole dance thing in both timelines, but once again, she had started having fun once the music started. Ruby could see her _smiling_ and _laughing_ , which she never did, and Ruby knew she didn't have a chance of dragging her away.

That left Weiss. Only Blake had come with a date, but unlike Ruby and Yang, Weiss had actually wanted one, and when Ruby spotted her, Weiss was doing her best not to look utterly miserable. Perfect.

"Weiss! Friend, bestie, how're you doing?"

Weiss adjusted a flower arrangement until it looked exactly the same as it did before she started messing with it. "Ruby."

"So, are you having fun? Because you don't look like you're having a whole lot of fun."

Weiss let out a breath. "I am having the time of my life. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. What do you need?"

Well, subtlety was overrated. "Yang says she won't help me beat up a supervillain until after I have another horrifying bi-curious experience."

Weiss blinked. " _Another_ one? What was your first?"

"Nora."

"Ah. And so you came to _me_?"

Ruby shrugged. "Blake seemed like she was having too much fun—wow, those are nine words I never thought I'd say—so I figured maybe you'd want to save the future with me instead."

"Of course. On a completely unrelated topic, I just ordered a T-shirt online. I'm not really a T-shirt girl, but this one says, 'Please bother someone else with your silly games' in great big, friendly letters."

"Neat. So, is that a yes?"

"About beating up a supervillain or the horrifying bi-curious experience? Actually, it doesn't matter. No."

"Is it a maybe?"

"Again, no." She turned away from the table and faced her. "Look, Ruby. We all put a lot of work into getting the dance up and running this week, and while I admit it didn't work out as I had hoped, I intend to see this event to its bitter and disappointing conclusion."

"That doesn't sound like much fun."

"I didn't come here to have fun. I came here to—"

"Save the future?"

"To see this event to its bitter and disappointing conclusion. That's what formal dances are all about." She glared at the cheerful partiers with the fury of a frozen tundra.

"That doesn't—"

"Sound like much fun, I know."

Ruby slumped her shoulders and wandered off. Yang and Blake were having too much fun to help her save the future, and Weiss was determined to have no fun at all. If Team RWBY was off the table and on the dance floor, then next up was Team JNPR! Jaune actually believed her when she told him about their imminent destruction. Sure, Jaune wasn't the strongest fighter she knew, but he came with _Pyrrha_ , and she deserved the chance to avenge her own death.

They were easy to find. Even when he wasn't crossdressing, Jaune was one of the tallest boys in the room, and Pyrrha was nearly his height. But when Ruby saw her, she stopped dead in her tracks. Pyrrha swayed in Jaune's arms in her red dress like a pair of trees in the wind, but Ruby saw golden embers in the night.

 _You have to save Pyrrha!_ Ruby could still hear Jaune begging her, and her job was not yet finished. Pyrrha wasn't safe— _no one_ was safe—with _that_ future still coming, and the last thing Ruby wanted to do was throw Pyrrha at the woman who murdered her.

She made her way to the edge of the dance floor and plopped down on a chair. She still needed to recruit someone to help her save the future, and heels made _everything_ worse.

"You look like you're having a rough night," said a girl in a green dress. "Mind if I join you?"

"Sure," Ruby said. "Suit your—aah!"

It wasn't just anyone in a green dress, it was _Emerald_. Coco, Yang, and Pyrrha had hallucinated during the tournament, and in each case, Emerald had been present. For Coco, Emerald had been the _only_ one present in that grove of trees, so that Semblance had to have been hers. Tall, tan, and with blood-red eyes, Emerald had never gotten her hands dirty, but she killed Penny all the same and had used Pyrrha to do it. What was worse, she was the only member of Cinder's team who came to them as a friend. Mercury had kept his distance and Cinder had been gone almost entirely until the end, but Emerald had always been there, smiling at them, hanging out, cheering them on, and Ruby had swallowed her act whole.

She was still smiling, playing the same game, but Ruby wasn't going to fall for it twice.

"Jumpy, aren't you?" She laughed. It even sounded sincere. "I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Emerald."

"Yeah, I know who you are."

Emerald hesitated, sensing something in her tone that suggested that Ruby wanted to be left alone. "I saw your sparring match with Mercury, which was _amazing_. Seriously, I would pay good money to have that on film."

Ruby looked at her. "Even though he's your teammate?"

She gave her a knowing smile. "Trust me, if you knew him as well as I do, you'd love to see him get knocked down a few pegs."

Ruby smiled despite herself. In two timelines, that was probably the first honest thing she had ever heard Emerald say. "You two don't get along?"

Emerald rolled her eyes. "I don't like to talk bad about my teammates, but Mercury? He's full of himself, and that doesn't even begin to describe him. Sure, he's strong, but he _knows_ he's strong, and treats everything like a game."

Ruby nodded. He had been like that during their first fight too. Ruby had been fighting with everything she had trying to get past him to stop Pyrrha's fight with Penny, and he had been _playing_ with her. There was no rage behind his actions, no passion, just cruel and distant _fun_.

"That's what I liked so much about his fight with you," Emerald continued. "He didn't lose because you were that much stronger than he was, he lost because he was playing and you weren't, and let me tell you, he has been _fuming_ about that all week. 'Oh, I could have beaten her! She just caught me off guard!' Well, what was he doing with his guard down in the middle of a fight?" She laughed, shaking her head. "He's actually been glaring at you the whole night, in case you haven't noticed."

Ruby blinked. "He has?"

"Sure, he's right over there."

Emerald smiled and waved at someone in the crowd, and Ruby spotted Mercury scowling at her. _There_ it was. There was the rage and passion he had been missing. Well, it was good that it was personal for him. It had been personal for her since his team killed her friends.

"So how'd you learn to use a scythe like that?" Emerald asked.

"Uncle Qrow," Ruby said before she could stop herself. Though, did it matter? It wasn't like it was a secret. "He taught me everything I know."

"Cool. Does he use a scythe too? Or is he just good at everything?"

Ruby grinned. "Yes."

Emerald laughed. "There aren't enough people who use scythes these days. Everyone wants weapons based on, you know, _weapons_ , but swords and spears have never done it for me. Enhanced farming tools have always had more style, you know?"

"Exactly! I've always liked your sickles, too."

Emerald's smile never left her lips, but her eyes narrowed. "How'd you know about that? I haven't used my weapons since I got here."

Ruby blinked. "Yes you have. It was at …" At the Vytal Tournament, and earlier when Grimm attacked the city. Two event that haven't happened yet. "Oh, right. Well, a person's weapons are always the first thing I notice about them." Which was true, but she still needed to change the subject. "So I've seen you carry your sickles around, I've seen Mercury use his boots up close, but what about your other teammate? What's her weapon?"

 _Dust-created obsidian-glass blades, bow, broad-tipped exploding arrows._ She had seen the scimitars once and the bow … twice.

"Oh, Cinder's a bit like your Uncle Qrow in that," Emerald replied. "She's good at everything."

 _NO SHE'S NOT._ Ruby forced a smile. "Neat. Is she coming? I haven't seen her here."

"Well, don't tell her I said this, but she's a _total_ perfectionist. She wanted to get her dress just right and had us go ahead without her. She'll probably get here at around midnight, give or take, so hopefully the dance will still be going on."

As soon as Emerald said _perfectionist_ , Ruby thought, _like Weiss_ , but she stomped that idea into the ground. That _woman_ was nothing like any of her teammates. She forced a smile again, not sure how much longer she could keep this up. "Yeah, the dance doesn't end until one, and Yang was planning an after-party, so it's going to be great! I have to go now, and check on … flower arrangements."

"Great! I'll catch you later."

Ruby screamed internally (she hoped) as she hurried away. She didn't know if she had told Emerald anything she shouldn't have or if she could trust anything that girl had said, but the part about Cinder being back by midnight seemed reliable. Last time she had faced Cinder in the Communications Tower around then, and more than that, it was _dramatic_.

She checked the time, and a clock on the wall said it was six thirty-seven. But it was broken. Her scroll said it was eleven twelve, so Ruby had maybe half an hour to catch Cinder in the act, and less than that to stop her nefarious scheme. She still didn't know what it was.

Her only advantage this time around was that she knew more than she did before, and even that was nearly nothing. She knew who and what, but not why or how. What did breaking into the CCT have to do with bringing down the Beacon? _Why_ someone would want to destroy an Huntsman Academy bothered her just as much, but Ruby couldn't exactly sit Cinder down and ask her why she wanted to be a supervillain without giving something away.

Here and now, she was running low on time. RWBY was out, JNPR was out, so that left … one of the teachers? She was trying to imagine a scenario where she managed to convince a teacher that she was from the future and not crazy in thirty minutes or less when she saw Penny.

 _Of course_. Sure, Penny had lost to Pyrrha who had lost to Cinder, but maybe it was a rock-paper-scissors sort of thing? Besides, Penny had volunteered to help Ruby find Blake without even being asked. How hard would it be to convince her to run off with her to save the future?

Well, pretty hard considering the two armed soldiers standing next to her, but still doable. Though as far as guards went, these two didn't seem so bad. The blue one was as stiff as a board, but the red one was tapping his foot to the music. Penny herself was dancing in place—well, she was bobbing more than dancing, but she wasn't causing any injuries or collateral damage, so Ruby had no room to judge.

Ruby approached her as casually as she could. "Hey, Penny! Glad you could make it!"

Penny stopped dancing, and Red even stopped tapping his foot. "I'm sorry. You must be mistaking me for someone else." She hiccupped.

Ruby hesitated, then it clicked. Penny had connections all the way up to General Ironwood himself, so she always had someone watching over her. Her guards seemed to be protecting her more from her friends than her enemies, but from what Ruby had seen and from what Weiss had told her, Atlas seemed obsessed with military discipline and wanted everyone to act like robots. Penny, an actual robot, was one of the most human people Ruby had ever met, so, irony.

"Right!" Ruby said. "We are meeting for the first time. My name's Ruby. What's yours, Penny?"

"It's Penny, Ruby," Penny said. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Great!" She looked at Penny's two expressionless guards. "So, um, do you want to dance with me?"

Penny hesitated. "That is an excellent question." She turned to the pair of soldiers. "Do I want to dance with her?"

Blue shrugged, and Red said, "Go knock yourself out, kid."

Penny frowned. "After I regain consciousness, _then_ will I want to dance with her?"

"He means go have fun," Blue said.

"Oh! Sensational!" She grabbed Ruby by the arm and dragged her onto the dance floor.

"I can't believe they fell for that!" Ruby said, hanging onto Penny until she learned to walk reliably with heels. "Okay, I'm not great at this, but we still need to make this look convincing. I know! We could do the robot." It was barely a dance at all, and Ruby could do it without ever taking her feet off the ground.

Penny froze.

"Oh wait, is that secretly offensive like when Yang got Blake a ball of yarn? Sorry. How about we, um …" Her mind went through the different dances Weiss had told her about. _Waltz, jig, salsa, tango, polka, swing, cross-step …_ "We could start a conga line!"

"How did you know about that?"

"Easy. It's literally one of the only two dances I know well enough not to screw up. Do you want to start it, or do you want me to lead?"

"No, how did you know about the … other thing?"

"What other thing? Oh, you mean the _beep boop bop_? That thing?"

She nodded, looking away, her eyes wide and terrified.

"You told me, remember?"

Penny looked at her and shook her head, making her bow wobble. "No I did not."

"Sure you did. It was back in …" In an alternate timeline. _Oh, crud, did I skip that?_ She looked at the clock. Six thirty-seven. Still broken. She put her hands on Penny's shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. "Okay, I don't have time to give you the full version, but the short one is this: I'm from the future. In an alternate timeline, you told me your secret, and later on, a lot of bad stuff happened. Now I'm trying to stop all the bad stuff from happening, and I need your help."

Penny blinked. "I see. May I ask you a question, Ruby? Are—"

"No, I'm not crazy." Everyone seemed to think she was, but Ruby would maintain her claim on sanity until the day she died.

"Are we still friends in the future?"

Ruby's eyes widened at that. "Of course! We fought bad guys together, Penny! Of course we're still friends."

"Even after you found out that I'm … not real?"

Ruby inhaled sharply. _Not real._ She had used the same terminology before. "I remember you worrying about this last time, but you don't need to. You _are_ a real girl, as real as I am. You might not have blood and guts in you, but that doesn't matter! You have a heart, _that's_ what matters, and you don't need organs to have a heart."

"Because," Penny said, testing out the words as she said them, "the heart is not an organ?"

Ruby hesitated. "Okay, I was a lot more eloquent the first time around, but you get the point, right?"

"The point being … that we're still friends?"

 _Close enough_. "Yes."

Penny smiled. "Sensational! So what do you need my help with, Ruby my friend?"

Ruby grinned. _Finally._ She just might pull this off. "First of all, we'll need to sneak out of here without being noticed." She looked around for an exit. "Follow me."

WWW

Red remained guarding an objective that had already left, and he was starting to feel redundant. Well, more redundant. He had a standard military assault rifle, while the P.E.N.N.Y. had enough firepower to wipe out a full legion of Atlesian Knights without breaking a sweat. If she could sweat. The P.E.N.N.Y. could hiccup, so perspiration wouldn't surprise him.

"Hey, Blue," Red said. Before the War of Color, soldiers traded their names for numbers upon enlisting. These days, they traded them for colors. Things got confusing when they were in groups of ten or more, but everyone knew each other's names on sight, so, progress.

"Yeah?" Blue said.

"How come she can hiccup?" Red had known other soldiers who insisted on assigning gender to machines like ships and guns. Red had insisted on calling them idiots, but it was hard to look at the P.E.N.N.Y. and call her an it. What could he say? Doctor Asimov had designed an incredibly convincing piece of hardware.

"P.E.N.N.Y.?"

"Yeah. I mean, she doesn't have any of the things that make you do that. Epiglottis?" That sounded right, but he hadn't cracked open an anatomy textbook in years. "Does she?"

Blue shrugged. "It makes her seem more human. You don't see someone hiccup and think, 'I bet she's secretly a robot.'"

Well, he had a point. "So I guess that's why she went into the bathroom too, right?"

Blue shrugged. "As far as I can guess."

"Because someone who never goes to the bathroom would look suspicious."

"Exactly."

"And girls always go in groups, right?"

"Usually."

"Because … timed bladders?"

"It's best not to think too much about it."

Red nodded. "Still, she's been in there for a while now."

Another shrug. "Girls are like that."

"Because … not thinking about it."

"Smart."

"Still, we're suppose to be keeping an eye on her, aren't we?"

Blue inhaled sharply. "You know, my last assignment was being a bodyguard for Winter Schnee."

Red's eyes widened. "Should I be impressed or sympathetic?"

"It was like being a lifeguard for a fish. Only the fish was a shark, and I was nursing a papercut."

"Sympathy it is."

"While I was working there, we had a rule. Well, closer to five hundred rules, but one of them was this: Winter Schnee gets bathroom breaks."

"Fair enough." Red looked at the clock on the wall. "But if she's not out by six forty, I'm going to knock on the door."

WWW

Ruby dialed her scroll and called down her locker.

"What happened in the future that you have to prevent?" Penny asked. She didn't call down her locker, but it crashed down anyway and she pulled on her backpack.

"Beacon falls," Ruby said. "Grimm attacked, the White Fang attacked, even the robot armies that Atlas brought turned on us." She kicked off her heels— _finally_ —and changed into the boots she had stored in her locker just for this moment.

"Was I also hacked?" she asked.

"Oh no, you were, um, oh shoot." What could she say? There had been plenty of chances to tell her friends comforting lies about the future, and she had told the truth each time. "Okay, I don't know how to tell you this, Penny, but, um, you died."

Her eyes widened. "I _died_?" Then her face split into a wide grin. " _Sensational!_ I never thought I'd get to die! I assumed I'd end up being destroyed, broken, or deconstructed." She looked up into the night sky, her eyes shimmering, and turned to her. "I know it's selfish of me to hope for this, but when it … _happened_ , were people, you know, _sad_?"

Ruby pulled out Crescent Rose and strapped it to her back. "Of course! We were devastated!"

Penny breathed in deeply, as though tasting her glorious future. "Amazing."

Ruby stared at her, trying to comprehend what it would be like to have her greatest hopes be to end as a person instead of as a thing. To be mourned. Remembered.

 _Thus kindly I scatter._

"Penny?" she said. "The future was pretty unbelievable, but let me tell you something. I've been wanting to save the future long before I did the time traveling thing; I've wanted to make the future a better place since I decided to become a Huntress. So no matter how amazing the other future was, the new one's going to be _even better_. You're not going to die in the future this time, Penny. You're going to live, and keep on living, and you'll have more friends than you can count."

"That number would exceed the human population."

"I don't care." She pulled the last item out of her locker, more important than boots she could fight in or even her scythe. It was a simple red hooded cloak. Weiss had told her that it didn't match her prom dress, but style was about not matching _right_. She checked the time. Eleven thirty-one.

She wouldn't have another chance to catch Cinder red-handed until the Vytal Tournament. She prayed she wasn't too late already.

The night was too silent to hold the battle for the future within the next half hour, but it always was calm before a storm. Ruby wrapped her cloak around her shoulders with the flourish that storm deserved.

"Let's dance."

WWW

A/n And that, my friends, is chapter four. Thank you reviewers for reviewing, thank you Magery for Magerying—or, um, editing, that's what I meant, and hopefully the next chapter won't take so long!

On a side note, my original idea was for Cinder to talk to Ruby at the dance instead of Emerald. It was really funny in my head, with Ruby struggling to not blurt out anything incriminating or suspicious.

Ruby: "So, what's it like being a supervillain?" _Dang it!_

Cinder: "Is that what they say about us? We're a bit stiff at Haven, but we're not that bad."

Ruby: "Ha ha, yeah, that's … that's what I meant." _Smooth._

But it didn't fit. That's the sort of thing Cinder would delegate, and Emerald's good at that sort of thing.

Now, I have one final announcement to make. I have plotted out the end of the story! Before I had a jumbled mess of disjointed ideas that would go on forever, but now, I have a _conclusion_.


	5. The Beginning of the End

No Such Thing as Destiny

Chapter Five

The Beginning of the End

Weiss stepped out into the night air for a moment of privacy, and as usually happened whenever she wanted time to herself, someone came to join her.

"Hey, Weiss," Yang said. "What's up?"

"Good evening, Yang. You look like you're enjoying yourself." Which was true. Everyone else seemed to have ups and downs, but Yang coasted on a perpetual high, which was completely unfair in Weiss' book.

"What can I say? People have finished showing up. Anyone who gets here now can find the punch bowl on their own." She fell silent, and for a moment the only sound was the muffled music from inside the dance hall, which grew louder when Blake opened the door.

"Hey, guys," she said. "Are we meeting here or just … happening here?"

Yang laughed. "Oh, we are _happening_! How about you? Was Sun getting too hands-on for the slow songs?"

Blake looked away. "No. I just—just wanted to see how you were doing."

"Well if he does, you can always use that Planet of the Apes quote on him."

Blake gave her a flat look. "Do you not know how offensive that is, or do you just not care?"

"Hey, it's only offensive if I say it. _You_ can say whatever you want. It's like how only Weiss can make fun of rich snobs."

" _Anyone_ can make fun of rich snobs," Weiss said. "No one cares what we think."

"Well, whatever," Blake said. "Sun had to talk to Neptune about his crippling social anxieties, so I came out to check on you guys."

"Sun has social anxieties?" Weiss said.

"No, Neptune," Blake said. "Or something like that. I was trying really hard not to eavesdrop, which is why I came out here. Where's Ruby? I haven't seen her inside for a while now."

"To be fair," Yang said, "you were pretty distracted, what with Sun not being hands-on enough."

"I _never_ said that," Blake said.

"She ran off with some ginger girl a while ago," Weiss said. "Snuck out through the bathroom window."

"Really?" Yang said. "Well, good for her! Never thought she'd actually do it."

"Wait, why'd she go out through the window?" Blake said. "The doors aren't guarded."

Yang rolled her eyes. "Because it's _fun_. Really, I feel like we're the only two people on the team who know how to have fun without being forced into it. She wasn't really getting into the fancy dance party and I was starting to get worried about her, but you know what? I wouldn't be surprised if Ruby ends up having more fun than all of us put together."

Just then, a beam of green light burst out of the tallest tower in the city and disappeared into the skyline.

"Well," Yang said after a moment. "What did I tell you?"

"Let's not jump to conclusions," Weiss said. "We have no evidence to suggest that Ruby had anything to do with that. It might be completely unrelated." She saw her teammates pulling out their scrolls to call down their lockers. "Okay, so I have hope," she said, following suit. "Is that so wrong?"

WWW

Ruby knew they had no chance of beating Cinder to the top of the tower if they took the elevator, so she went with her plan B, where she and Penny ascended with style. She grabbed onto her friend, who shot her swords into the side of the building, and they climbed the CCT like a giant, ten-legged spider with swords for hands, wires for legs, and a pair of aspiring Huntresses for a body. Alright, so maybe that wasn't the best analogy, but it _was_ awesome.

They crashed through the window of the final floor of the Communications Tower, and found … nothing. No Cinder, no evil plot, not even an evil night janitor.

Perfect.

According to the flashing light on the wall, the elevator was coming up to this floor, and either a supervillain was coming to take part in a malevolent scheme, or Ruby was about to get in a whole lot of trouble. Trespassing, breaking and entering, corrupting Remnant's first synthetic person … that was worth at least a detention. She might even get expelled for it, ending her future as a Huntress.

But if she let Cinder have her way, _everyone's_ future was going to end. And to risk hers for theirs, that was what being a Huntress was all about, right? So she aimed Crescent Rose at the elevator doors, and did the most Huntress-y thing she could think of.

"Ready your laser cannon, Penny," she said, "and when Cinder opens those doors, hit her with everything you've got."

"Confirmed. How will I recognize the objective?"

"I'll tell you."

She took a deep breath and waited. _This has got to be the slowest elevator ever!_ "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, friend Ruby."

"Why did you come with me? Is it just because you're my friend and I asked you to, or do you really believe me?"

Penny tilted her head. "I do not understand the question. Because you are my friend, I came when you asked me for help, and because you are my friend I believe you." Penny turned to her, while Ruby stared straight ahead. "Ruby? Is something wrong?"

"I-I'm fine," Ruby said. "Let's … let's just do this thing."

 _Ding!_

The elevator arrived, opening to reveal someone Ruby barely knew, but focused on with predatory intensity. Long black hair, a black mask, a skintight black suit, _burning_ yellow eyes— _this_ was the woman who broke the future.

On behalf of said future, Ruby Rose had something to say.

"Kill her!" she shouted. "Kill her with lasers!"

Cinder had one moment to look surprised before green light engulfed her. It was possibly the single most beautiful image Ruby had ever seen.

WWW

He saw a beam of green shoot out from the top floor of the Communications Tower and disappear over the horizon. It was a signal, of a sort. No, not a signal. A beacon.

He sipped his coffee.

He was not a fighter. He was not even a commander, so his pieces didn't need him to hand out orders. He was a _teacher_ , and he taught his students everything they knew, so he knew _everything_ they would do.

His knight was gone, stuck in a distant corner of the board, unable to act in any way that mattered. His rook would act immediately and predictably, but rooks shone in the end game, when the board was uncluttered. His bishop was present too, but she was a protective, restorative force, and would let the flame escape if it meant leaving the school unburned.

Not a terrible conclusion, he mused, but could he do better than preserve the status quo? What could his pawns do? His enemies would have studied every major piece he had and found some way to counter them, but his pawns? Their greatest strength was that they were unimportant, not worth noticing. They were wild cards, each one, and only they could break the perfect plan. He knew them by name, and he knew what they would try and exactly where they would fail.

He considered his options, the possibilities, and the eventual outcomes. He sipped his coffee, and he made his move.

WWW

The hole in the wall glowed with molten metal, dripping like blood, open to the empty night. Ruby watched, feeling … disappointed. It was ridiculous, but true. Could it really be this easy? Just a sucker punch with a laser cannon, and the future was saved?

She heard a crash, as the elevator hit the floor at the bottom of shaft. Then there was the woman, still alive, standing before the night and watching with an eye on fire.

Cinder pulled herself through the cramped space and into the room before Penny could shoot again. Ruby smiled. Of course it wasn't over yet. This was _her_ dance, and the music had barely started. She collapsed Crescent Rose into its rifle mode and fired shot after shot at Cinder while circling around her at a distance.

Penny joined the fight, sending her swords spinning, homing in on Cinder no matter how many times she dodged—and dodge Cinder did. She didn't attack at first. Instead she moved, as graceful and elusive as a dream, weaving through Penny's swords and blocking Ruby's rounds with the palm of her hand.

Ruby watched Cinder focused entirely on defense, and thought she was winning. That was the price she paid for spending her life fighting Grimm. Grimm fought by instinct, attacking with everything they had when they chose to attack at all. They were soulless, yes, but they were without guile. Humans were far more treacherous, and Ruby didn't realize that Cinder was merely testing their abilities until she turned the tables on them.

She bolted, running between Ruby and Penny so Ruby couldn't fire without hitting her friend. Then Cinder formed an obsidian glass bow out of Dust, and aimed at Penny.

"Look out!" Ruby shouted. "Her arrows explode!"

Penny brought her swords back in front of her to block the arrows, and the explosion scattered them to the edges of the room. In a moment, she would yank them out of the walls they had embedded themselves in, but during that moment, she was defenseless.

But, like Yang always said, the best defense was the Leeroy Jenkins Gambit. "Die, Cinder!" Ruby screamed and charged, her scythe swinging. Ranged attacks were safer, but her high-caliber rifle rounds barely served to distract her opponent.

Crescent Rose slashed faster than the eye could see, but instead of jumping back, Cinder stepped forward with inhuman grace, past her scythe's threat zone. An obsidian scimitar appeared in her hand, pressed against the haft, and stopped Crescent Rose dead in mid-swing.

"Cinder?" she said. "What gave me away?"

Oh, right, Ruby hadn't used her name before, and Cinder was still wearing a mask. She tried to pull away, but her scythe was still hooked around Cinder's scimitar, and her struggles were about as effective as armwrestling with Yang. "Um, would you believe me if I told you I was from the future?"

"No, I can't say that I would."

"Yeah, no one does." Ruby pulled the trigger and fired a gravity round. It missed, of course, but the force of the recoil broke through Cinder's defenses, cutting her in half just like Ruby had done with Grimm a hundred times before. At least, that was what was supposed to have happened. Instead, the shot rang out and Cinder didn't budge. Strength aside, the recoil should have overcome their total weight and slid them across the floor, but Cinder just stood there like Weiss when she combined her Semblance with Gravity Dust.

"Did Qrow tell you?" Cinder asked, with casual indifference. "Has that little black bird been singing stories about me?"

Ruby blinked. " _Idiot!_ "

"Excuse me?"

"Uncle Qrow should have been, like, the _fourth_ person I told, but I didn't even think of him! And he might even have believed me, too! What is wrong with me?"

"I have no idea."

Penny was ready and was even charging her laser cannon, but couldn't attack Cinder without putting Ruby in danger. "While we're stuck in this stalemate, there's something that I've always wanted to ask you about— _Penny, now!_ "

At that moment, Ruby violated all of her training, instincts, and common sense, and let go of her scythe. She activated her Semblance and fled in a current of rose petals, leaving Cinder to be once more engulfed in Penny's green light.

WWW

Yang reached the CCT, knowing that Ruby was involved with whatever was going on, getting into trouble, and leaving her out of all the fun. Well, Yang couldn't do anything about the first two, but there was no way she was going to let the last one slide.

"Yang, stop!" Blake called out behind her.

"What?"

"Body," she said, pointing at the floor.

Yang looked down and jumped. There was a man in a security uniform lying down right in front of her. She hadn't even _seen_ him! Sure, Blake's catvision was good for more than reading smutty ninja stories at night with the lights off, but _still_.

"Is he dead?" Yang asked.

Blake knelt down next to the guard. "He's still breathing."

"Good. We'll come back for him later." Yang took off at a run for the front door of the tower.

"Careful!" Blake said, following her. "You can't just charge in like—"

Yang stopped dead in her tracks when she looked inside the building, and Blake nearly crashed into her. "Holy … crap. There are a lot of dead bodies here." All over the ground floor, men in helmets and body armor lay unmoving.

Blake unsheathed and unfolded Gambol Shroud and crept around Yang. She had a prowling way of walking, and her eyes darted in every direction as she reached the closest of the fallen guards.

"No, worse," she said. "They're alive."

"Oh, aren't you just a little bag of sunshine."

She rolled her eyes. "Think about it. Do you have any idea how hard it is to knock someone out without killing them, or even injuring them?"

Yang shrugged. "We both know you take your homework more seriously than I do."

Blake gave her a flat look. "Yeah. Let's just pretend I learned this in class. Look, if you hit someone too hard, then you break through their Aura and end up breaking something else too. If you're more careful, you won't hurt them, but you'll give them time to, I don't know, _sound the alarm_ , and if you're too gradual they'll keep standing anyway. If you want to knock them out like this, you have to tear through their Aura so quickly they go into shock, and whoever came through here did that over twenty times. So yes, Yang, this is worse."

And whoever did that was probably on the top floor, and Ruby was fighting all by herself. _One of these days, little sister, you're gonna learn to share._

Weiss took that moment to catch up to them. "I hope I didn't miss anything," she said, stepping around an unconscious guard. "I figured Yang would charge into the battle without thinking and Blake would try to do everything by herself, so I decided to bring some friends."

"Hey, girls!" Sun said, coming in through the doorway. The tie he had been wearing during the dance was tied around his head like a bandana. "Blake, did you ditch me to go pick another fight with organized crime? Because I'm hurt."

"Hello ladies," Neptune said. "Is this where the party's headed? Because I have to say, you people really know how to set it up."

More people, classmates and students from other schools, squeezed in through the front door in their formal suits and gowns, weapons on hand. No teachers, though. Good. Yang didn't have time for the "It's too dangerous for you!" speech.

"Alright, boys and girls, listen up!" she said. "There are bad guys messing around on the top floor, and it's up to us to stop them. If you're afraid of getting hurt, stay out of the way because the rest of us are going up there to punch evil in the face!" With that, she slammed her hand against the elevator button.

"It's out of order," Weiss said.

"It's … what?"

"The elevator. It's out of order. Trust me, I came here just last week. When you hit the button, it's supposed to light up and go 'ding.' It didn't do either of those things."

So much for her dramatic exit. _I can't have anything tonight, can I?_ She turned around and poked the button furiously. "Ding, dang it!"

"If it's broken, getting angry at it won't fix anything."

Yang gritted her teeth, pried the elevator doors open, and peered inside. A pile of wreckage lay about two floors beneath her. "Well what do you know, it _is_ out of order."

"Please never pursue a career in medicine."

"Okay, new plan! We're going to take the stairs up to the top, and _then_ punch evil in the face."

Weiss looked at her in shock. "Do you have any idea how tall the CCT is?"

Yang shrugged. "A little exercise never hurt anyone with low blood pressure." _And running shoes._ She pulled off her heels.

"Forty-four. There are forty-four floors in the Communications Tower."

"I'm not going to ask you how you know that."

"I was here last week! And there's a floor plan on the wall," she added, pointing.

"Then we better get started!"

"Wait!" someone else said. She had tan skin, green hair, and red eyes. Yang didn't know her. "The first thing we should do is get the injured to safety."

Yang glanced down at the guards. "They're safe where they are."

"Yeah, but for how long?" the green-haired girl said. "Am I the only one who saw the explosions upstairs? If that terrorist attack or whatever this is brings the building down, these people aren't going to wake up."

"She's right," Pyrrha said. "Our first priority as Huntresses is always to protect those who cannot protect themselves."

"Right!" Jaune said. "Be careful moving the bodies. Anyone who doesn't know first aid, grab someone who does. I'll call an ambulance, just in case they haven't seen this from the other side of Vale."

And like that, Yang had lost them. The other students started gathering around the fallen, and Yang punched a hole through the wall in frustration.

"Yang," Blake said softly. "That girl Ruby ran off with, Weiss called her ginger. Was she the same one who was with her that night at the docks with Torchwick and the White Fang?"

Yang snapped her fingers. "I _knew_ I've seen her before! What was her name? Pepper? Pepsi? Penny!"

Blake nodded. "I recognized the laser."

"The … laser?"

She nodded again. "Her weapon shoots lasers. She took out the entire group of White Fang and several Bullheads before Ruby had time to join the fight."

"Before she had time to _join_ the fight?" Yang repeated. She remembered that night, and she remembered the weirdo that had started tagging along, but she and Weiss had arrived too late for the action. "I know how fast she is, Blake. She doesn't take _time_ to join a fight."

Blake nodded a third time. "If they're still together, I don't think Ruby needs any backup."

Yang weighed her options. "Logically I know you're right and I shouldn't worry, but screw logic, I'm going anyway."

"Figures. I'm going to stay down here and keep an eye on things. Something seems off about all this."

Yang grinned. "Yeah, you just don't want to charge up forty flights of stairs with me."

"Don't take it personally. I don't want to charge up forty flights of stairs with anyone."

She laughed and kicked open the door to the stairwell. _Oh, man this is going to take forever. Why couldn't you have picked a fight in the park like everyone else?_

After a few stories, she heard someone coming up behind her. Blake? Weiss? No, it was some guy, silver hair. Yang recognized him as the Mistral boy who got his butt handed to him by her little sister. Mario or something.

"Hey Blondie," he said. "So I have the bedside manner of a grumpy undertaker and I could use some exercise. What's the plan?"

Yang grinned. "The plan is that we're going to get some exercise and beat someone up. You in?"

"Sure thing. Lead the way."

WWW

The force of Penny's lasers didn't cut through Cinder or knock her down, but it pushed her back. That stopped when the floor exploded, throwing Penny into the ceiling.

Cinder took a deep breath, and the heat—either from Penny's attack or her own anger—warped the air around her. When she looked at Ruby, Ruby saw that her right eye was wreathed in flame.

"If you already know who I am," she said, her eye on fire, "then I have no more reason to keep secrets."

Ruby swallowed. "Um, I didn't know you could do that."

"Then we simply cannot wait to get to know each other _much_ more closely. First, though, I have to incinerate someone." Her black clothes burned orange like glowing embers, and the floor beneath where Penny had landed did too.

"Look out!" Ruby shouted, but it was too late. The explosion knocked Penny into the ceiling again, which also exploded, bouncing the girl around the room like a human pinball. Cinder launched herself into the fray, and in a flash of obsidian against steel, it was all over.

In the beginning, the room had been full of organized rows of desks, stools, and computer hardware. In less than two minutes, any semblance of order had been buried under a mess of broken furniture and exposed wires. Joining that wreckage were ten sword with cut strings and a severed robotic arm.

Even cut off from Penny's body, that arm still twitched, as though reaching for a promise that Ruby could no longer fulfill, and she realized just how outmatched she was. She had believed that fighting Cinder two against one would be a fair fight, and getting the jump on her would give Ruby a solid advantage, but Cinder wasn't just twice as strong as her; she was a whole team all by herself.

Cinder moved with Weiss' practiced grace, and landed each strike with her precision and Yang's sheer power. When compounded with Blake's cunning and Ruby's natural skill, then Ruby wasn't fighting another Huntress or even a fairytale monster. She was fighting RWBY, and that was a fight she knew she could not win.

But she picked her scythe up one last time, because that _did not matter._ She had known her whole life that Huntresses didn't get fairytale endings. They got Huntress endings.

 _Thus kindly I scatter._

She folded Crescent Rose into a rifle and burst into motion, running up the wall while shooting at Cinder in a rhythm of thunderous fire and mechanical reloads. She unfolded it again into a scythe and pulled the trigger once more to send her into a spin that came crashing down on her enemy.

Cinder caught the blade by the tip. Ruby might as well as attacked her with a butter knife.

"Where's all this violence coming from?" Cinder asked, her voice silk. "I only want—to _talk_!" With that, she slammed the palm of her hand into Ruby's chest and sent her flying through the air and crashing into the wall. It felt like being hit by Yang, if Yang ever stopped holding back while sparring with her.

Her vision blurred, and when she regained focus, she saw Cinder walking towards her with the graceful swagger of a runway model. "So, Ruby, let's talk."

WWW

Blake never understood how some people could trust instinctively. Maybe they really were as honest and as straightforward as they pretended to be. Maybe they had never met anyone who wasn't.

Neither applied to her. Instead, she had a healthy distrust for authority, which led her to go snooping around to see what Beacon's esteemed faculty was doing during the attack.

She found soldiers. Lots and lots of soldiers, all wearing Atlas military uniforms. They arrived in trucks and ran around like a hornets' nest. It wasn't until she reached the middle that she found someone she recognized.

"Ozpin didn't answer his scroll," Glynda Goodwitch said, "but I left a message telling him how one of your students decided to start blowing up public property."

"As I said, Atlas will pay for any and all damages done to the CCT," General Ironwood said. Goodwitch and Ironwood. Blake had seen them dancing together earlier. "We've built it before, and we can rebuild it."

Goodwitch crossed her arms. "Now, I don't mean to criticize because I know how a single student can reflect poorly on her entire school, but you told me that Miss Polendina was your best."

"At combat," Ironwood said, his hands flying across the buttons of a holoscreen in front of him. "Penny's real world experience is severely lacking, so it's possible that the stress got to her and … ah ha! We have visual!"

So Blake was right. It _was_ Penny up there. Ironwood's holoscreen flickered to life, and if Blake had been directly in front of them or behind them, she could have seen what they were looking at. Instead, she had to make her way around them while trying to look like she wasn't spying.

"Do have all your students bugged, James?" Goodwitch asked. "Or just this one?"

"Just this one. Like I said, she's inexperienced, and there were some concerns about her psychological fortitude, so her father insisted."

As Blake edged closer, she managed to catch an image of Ruby on the holoscreen. The view shook and static flared, but it was her. Blake didn't know if she should be glad that she found her, worried that she was, once again, in the middle of everything, or amused that Ruby had found time to trade her heels for boots and was wearing her red hood over her formal dress.

She didn't recognize the masked woman with the flaming eye Ruby was fighting, but she could take care of herself, and if Penny was helping her instead of lacking "psychological fortitude," then she'd be fine.

Goodwitch and Ironwood, however, fell silent. Blake couldn't see their faces from her angle, but their already stiff postures stiffened even more. Then the camera shook too much to follow, briefly turned off entirely, and ended up pointed at the ceiling.

"That's her," Ironwood whispered. "What is she _doing_ here?" He began barking orders into a radio. "This is General Ironwood. Call back all active personnel, and wake up the rest. Double the perimeter around the CCT, and bring in some anti-air just in case. I don't care who they are, no one gets out of the CCT unless I say so."

"Establishing martial law already, James?" Goodwitch asked.

Ironwood clicked off the radio. "Am I overreacting?"

Goodwitch shook her head. "Just the opposite. She's going to cut through your men and machines like butter. Still, that's your responsibility, not mine. Mine's trying to get herself killed fighting a pseudo-mythological being, and I need to get her out of trouble."

Ironwood nodded. "I suppose an airstrike was out of the question from the start. Good luck."

Goodwitch started to leave, but stopped and pulled out her scroll. "Ozpin! Perfect timing. We just found the one who took out Autumn. I was just on my way to … what? You can't be serious, sir."

She fell silent, staring at her scroll. Blake couldn't see the screen from her angle, but with two sets of ears she should have been able to hear the other side of the conversation. Instead, there was nothing.

"I have to agree with Glynda on this, Ozpin," Ironwood said. "I don't know if this is a trap or just the enemy being sloppy, but it's a situation we can't ignore."

Again, silence. Were they wearing earpieces? Blake couldn't see any, but it made sense if they were discussing sensitive information. Still, how could Ironwood hear if the Headmaster had only called Glynda?

"Don't lecture me about the bigger picture!" Goodwitch snapped. "One of my students is up there in that mess! Do you think her family's going to care about the bigger picture when we send her home in a box?"

Another pause.

Goodwitch let out a sigh. "Understood." She put her scroll away, and for a moment neither spoke. "He's never led us astray before."

"I still don't like this."

"Of course not. You want to blow something up."

Ironwood stood straight and folded his arms behind his back. Military posture with extra military. "I'd rather regret a mistake than do nothing when I could have helped."

"Still, it's better to make no mistakes at all."

"But he's made more mistakes than either of us, by his own account."

"But he's had more time to make them." She fell silent for a moment. "Still, I agree with you, James. I don't like this either."

That didn't lead either of them to stage a rescue, though. As Beacon's Headmaster, Ozpin was Goodwitch's immediate superior, but it sounded like Ironwood paid him the same respect, and they were supposedly equals.

Blake didn't understand half of what was going on, and the other half made her stomach clench. Goodwitch seemed to assume Ruby was going to die, but she wasn't going to do anything to stop it. Blake considered joining Yang, but she decided against it. Information was what she needed now, and she was exactly where she needed to be.

Still, one girl within hearing of Atlas' general was suspicious. Two people, ironically, would be less suspicious, and a crowd would be nearly invisible. She considered calling Sun, but subtlety was not one of his strengths. Fortunately, there was someone nearby, a girl with green hair with her head in her hands sitting on the concrete, and Blake approached her.

She was from Mistral, Blake remembered. Emerald. She had suggested moving the injured to safety when Yang wanted to storm the tower. Her teammate, Mercury, had gone with Yang, which explained why Emerald was out here, eavesdropping on the people in charge.

Blake sat down next to her and pretended to be a naturally social person. Emerald, though, didn't respond. For a moment Blake thought that the girl was sobbing, but her breathing was too steady.

She sent a text to Weiss explaining what she had heard before speaking to Emerald. "Are you okay?"

She didn't respond, and Blake realized that Emerald's breathing wasn't just steady, it was _controlled_. Yang breathed like that right before she screamed. Blake put a hand on her shoulder, and Emerald lashed out at her, eyes blazing red.

But her eyes were always red, so that meant nothing. "S-sorry," Emerald said. "Bad headache."

She looked horrible. A few minutes ago, the girl had been relaxed and in control, even in a bad situation. Now her neck and jaw were taut, her eyes could barely focus, and if she tried to stand up, she'd probably fall over. Blake almost suggested that she leave in one of that ambulances that was on its way, but she knew that being even further from the action wouldn't help.

"Worried about your teammate?"

"Yeah. Not how I wanted to spend the evening."

"I think my teammate prefers it this way."

Emerald smiled weakly. "Mine too. He's always like this, charging into danger, picking fights. He thinks it's _fun_."

"She doesn't realize how easily people die." She kicked herself mentally for sucking at small talk. _This is not how you console people._

Emerald, though, didn't seem bothered. "Yeah."

Blake continued sitting with her, hoping that Goodwitch and Ironwood would give her some good news tonight. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Emerald text a message on her scroll. NO HELP COMING.

WWW

Yang lost track of how many flights of stairs she had climbed. Ten? Twenty? Not forty-four, and that was the only milestone that mattered. She had taken her dancing shoes off before she started and moved silently, but the guy with her—Mercury, she remembered—clanged behind her each time his metal boots hit metal stairs.

She was about to tell him something encouraging along the lines of, "We're almost there," when something crashed down on her shoulder—hard. She crumpled and the stairs broke beneath her, landing on her hands and knees one story down.

Above her, Mercury stared down at her through the gap in the stairs, looking so smug Yang wanted to punch him for that alone.

"You know," Yang said, getting up and readying Ember Celica, "Ruby is a great judge of character. I really should trust her more."

Mercury shrugged. "Yeah, too bad she's dead. You know, assuming she's where you think she is. I wanted to kill her myself, but I'm fine keeping it in the family, and I'm pretty sure the boss doesn't want to be in—"

Yang fired her gauntlets at him, cutting him off. "Interrupted? Yeah, I know I _should_ let you finish monologuing your evil plan first, but I'd much rather pound your face in and let it be a surprise."

WWW

Penny was not dead. She _was not_ dead. Her right arm was gone, and the open circuits screamed at her until the pain sent her into shock. Yes, pain. Her father had designed nearly every robot in Atlas' military, but Penny was the only one he had built to feel pain.

She had asked him about that after she had pricked her finger. She had begged him to make it stop hurting, but Father had smiled the same sad smile he always had and told her no.

 _I can't,_ he had said. _That would change you, turn you into a_ thing. _You would be nothing more than a series of blueprints and equations like every other_ weapon _I've had to make._

 _I don't understand._ There was little she had understood at that time, only that her father loved her.

 _There is no one in all of Remnant like you, Penny, my daughter. It is a lonely life I have condemned you to, but if I were to change that, you would not have a life at all. People may call you a machine, but they are wrong. In your design, I have multiplied your sorrows and your joy. You will love deeper and hate more fiercely than anyone you will ever meet, because you must. You_ must _be more human than any human ever born, because you are the first human ever_ made _._

 _I hope, one day, you will forgive me._

On the other side of the room, she heard Ruby. "Everyone. I told everyone who would listen, and plenty of people who wouldn't. Not a whole lot of them took me seriously, but if I don't come back alive, oh boy, you can bet your flaming eyeball _that's_ gonna change."

Right. They were in a fight. They were _losing_ a fight. Penny didn't know much about friendship, but she had downloaded everything available about combat, and there was one way to win a losing battle.

" _What_ did you tell them?"

"Everything."

Cinder had proven stronger than both of them combined, and Penny's analysis had revealed no exploitable weaknesses. In a fair fight, Cinder would win every time. That meant …

"Everything?"

"I know how you're going to hack all the Atlas robots into attacking everyone and team up with the White Fang. I even memorized your stupid, "Who can you really trust" speech you were going to broadcast before the attack, and I bet you haven't even written that yet!"

Chaos. In a perfectly ordered system, the stronger side won every time, but as chaos increased, the worth of strength decreased while luck took its place. Unbalance the battlefield. Implement disorder. Let probability give way to possibility, and enter a system where there are no plans, only … hope.

In her weakened state, she had no hope for herself, but Ruby though, Ruby had a chance. Penny didn't understand much about friendship, but she liked it so far. Her father hadn't known that a synthetic person would ever make friends, but he had given her a chance, and in the end, that was all that one could do.

Cinder had severed the strings on her swords. Penny wasn't sure why. They were remote controlled and had enough Dust to power them for a much longer fight. At a mental command, her ten untethered weapons floated into the air.

Penny couldn't hope to defeat Cinder. She had hit her twice at full power and Cinder fought on. But the tower was as vulnerable as Penny was. _Change the battlefield. Change the system._

Hope.

Penny wouldn't be able to survive the change, but she supposed that friendship wasn't about her anyway.

"Ruby," she said, her voice stronger than she had expected it to be. "I'm going to self destruct. I'm sorry." But she wasn't going to self destruct. She was going to _die._ She smiled.

"You can self destruct?" Ruby asked. "That is so cool—I mean, Penny, no!"

WWW

A/n So, if you can't tell by the tone, I'm wrapping things up. I actually have an end in mind, which isn't something that happens to a lot of my stories. I couldn't have gotten this far if it weren't for everyone who took a time to leave a review, and especially for Magery for proofreading each chapter before publishing. So … yeah.


	6. All Fall Down

No Such Thing as Destiny

Chapter Six

All Fall Down

Yang lived to fight. Her whole life was one long series of fights with commercial breaks that she tried to skip over. She didn't let herself get distracted by things like how her little sister was in trouble at the top of the tower, had stumbled onto some sort of evil conspiracy, and was probably from the future. She let those things give her focus.

"I think I'm going to do as my friend Nora has so often suggested," she snarled, her eyes blazing red, "and break—your—legs!"

Mercury responded by kicking her in the face and doing a backflip. That was getting annoying. The guy had reach with those long legs of his. Her style was more solid, his more fluid. Liquid metal, like his name. Fine. She wasn't here to show off, and she'd happily splatter the silly dancing man all over the walls.

She shot at his feet, blowing up the stairs he was standing on. He hopped out of the way and fired his boot guns at her, hitting her in the chest and sending him into another backflip. Same trick. Not that he had a whole lot of other options in the cramped stairwell.

She shot herself at him, but he jumped over her, did a handstand, and, once more, shot her.

"Are you fighting me?" she demanded, "or just trying to stall me?"

He shrugged. "Honestly I'm just letting you wear yourself out, Blondie. There's no point trying to hide my plan when you're too stupid to improvise."

Yang's plan, as usual, was to hit her opponent really hard, and if that didn't work, hit him harder. She didn't need delicate precision, she just needed to care more. Sometimes people told her that she cared too much, but that was bullcrap. She could never care too much. And Mercury …

"You don't care at all," she said. "About anything."

He shrugged again. "I try to keep things professional, not personal. What does it matter to me if some little girl gets herself killed for putting her nose where it doesn't belong? Besides, you don't even know the brat's up there; you're just paranoid that she might be in trouble, so here you are, getting your butt professionally kicked."

"No," Yang said. "I know my sister. I know exactly where she is." She saw a flash of something white a few levels below her. "I know my team. I know exactly what they're doing, so I know exactly where I need to be. How about you, Merc?"

That insufferable smirk never left his lips, but for a moment, it left his eyes. "I know my job, Blondie. That's all I need."

Ice crystallized around his feet, sticking him to the floor, and from below the Ice Queen herself graced them with her presence. "Oh, just shut up and kiss, already," Weiss said.

Yang didn't kiss him, but she punched him—and shot him—right in the kisser, which was way more fun in her book. The ice shattered and he crashed into the wall, where Weiss froze him before he could react. Yang jumped down and hit him with a flurry of punches, pounding him again and again until the wall broke down behind him, sending him out into the night where he belonged.

WWW

"Penny, no!"

Cinder turned, expecting the one-armed girl to reveal an explosive under her dress—which would actually be a pretty fun turn of events—but instead saw her thrice-cursed swords floating in the air again. Lovely. If Penny tried to shoot her with that laser canon again, then she was using Ruby as a human shield.

Instead, the swords formed a circle, spun, and fired a hole straight down into the floor.

Huh. Well, okay then.

The ring of swords moved slightly and fired again, making the room shake. No, it wasn't the room shaking. It was the whole building.

Oh. No. No, no, no.

She left Ruby—the girl was easy enough to handle and Cinder still had questions—and charged the swords, her own scimitars snapping into her hands. Energy began to form at the center of the ring, green and pulsating with the promise of destruction, and Cinder cut through them using her scimitars like a pair of scissors.

She disrupted the laser blast, and the swords, as thin as razors, shattered like glass. And then they exploded.

WWW

Yang looked out the hole she made in the wall. "Seriously? All that climbing and we're only, what, twenty stories up? That Mercury jerk's going to live!" Of course, that shouldn't have surprised her. Any Huntsman worth his salt should survive being dropped out of the sky, let alone a skyscraper.

Weiss sighed dramatically. "If only he had some sort of student I.D. that he had to register with Beacon when he came here."

Yang rolled her eyes. "Nothing kills the thrill of a fight like bureaucracy, Weiss."

"What were you two fighting over anyway?"

Yang shrugged. "He attacked me, I fought back. He started monologuing, but I wasn't paying attention. I got the impression that he's part of some evil conspiracy that Ruby ran into at the top, but I was kind of focused on punching him in the face."

"You would. Though I think you may be right about the conspiracy. As soon as we finished evacuating the injured, I got a text from Blake. She overheard some teachers talking, and she got the impression that whatever's going on is more in their league than ours, but they're not coming to help because … reasons."

"If they can't handle it, then we probably can't either," Yang said.

"Probably," Weiss agreed.

"Are you going to advise me to do the smart thing and walk away?"

She rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't waste my breath."

Yang grinned. Then the building shook. The blast didn't come from an explosion above them – it resonated through the entire structure. Yang stumbled and grabbed onto the railing. "The heck was that?" A second explosion, even closer than the first, shook it again. "The heck was that?"

Then the skyscraper began to shift. The stairs up became more horizontal, the stairs down became a vertical drop, and the hole in the wall began to face the sky.

The whole thing was falling over.

Yang's eyes grew wide as she struggled to find a way to properly describe the situation at hand.

"Well, crap."

WWW

Ruby felt the building sway, like someone trying on stilts or high-heeled shoes for the first time. Penny had fired twice before Cinder stopped her, and if she knew how to demolish a building …

The Communications Tower stopped swaying and began to fall.

Cinder stood up, starting to look worn. She had been hit by Penny's laser's twice and just had Penny's swords blown up in her face, and she was beginning to look tired. Ruby didn't know what it was going to take to stop that woman, but she guessed that dropping a building on her was a good place to start.

Ruby picked up her scythe and looked Cinder in the eye. Then Cinder turned to Penny and raised her bow.

"No!"

She activated her Semblance and flashed to the other side of the room to intercept and deflect Cinder's arrow. Cinder's exploding arrow. That exploded.

Ruby crashed into a desk and felt what was left of her Aura disappear entirely. It was like being naked, only worse. The next hit would cut.

The desk began to slide, and Ruby scrambled over it to avoid being crushed. She hurried to Penny's side, who was still lying on the floor and was starting to roll, and steadied herself with her scythe.

"Penny! Are you alright?"

Penny blinked twice as her eyes began to focus. "I am in superb pain," she said distantly. "My self-destruct sequence seems to have been interrupted."

Ruby glanced at Cinder, who was on the falling side of the room and was avoiding tables. "Your self-destruct sequence is working just fine." She'd need to have a talk with her later about when she should and not use that term, but first she needed to focus on keeping her alive.

She grabbed a shard of metal from Penny's broken swords, but dropped it when it burned her hand. She used her hood as an oven mitt, grabbed the shard, and, with a silent apology, used Crescent Rose to hammer the piece of metal into the floor.

"Hang onto this," she said. "I'll handle Cinder."

"You'll handle me?" Cinder said from the other side of the room. She stood upon a pile of furniture where the floor met the wall. "I don't suppose you'd agree to a cease-fire until we stop having a building falling on us?"

"Not on your life!" With her Aura depleted, she had no defense, so she'd have to put everything into offense.

"So eager to die?"

"This isn't about me!" Ruby snarled. "This is about Penny! About Pyrrha! Beacon! And this is about you!" She charged and aimed her gun midrun. A bow appeared in Cinder's hands, and as one they shot each other.

Ruby veered out of the way of Cinder's arrow, but Ruby's own shot struck true. It didn't hit Cinder—a single high-caliber Dust round wouldn't do much to someone who could tank Penny's laser cannon, but it hit the window behind Cinder and shattered it.

Next she raise the blade of her scythe and moved in for melee. Cinder didn't have time to switch to scimitars, so she blocked with her bow, deflecting Ruby's strike. Ruby followed through with her swing until Crescent Rose was aimed directly behind her.

Then she fired, using the recoil to send her crashing into Cinder and both of them out the open window.

They fell.

For one surreal moment, they were no longer fighting each other, they were merely falling. For that moment, there was nothing but the wind and weightlessness as they left the lumbering tower behind them and flew toward the stars. No, the stars were behind them, those were the city lights that—

A blade slashed across Ruby's back, cutting through her hood and drawing blood. Ruby screamed and pulled herself away, twisting in midair in time to see Cinder switching her scimitars out for her bow. Apparently she wasn't too fond of the idea of them dying together. To be honest, Ruby wasn't too thrilled with that idea either.

Cinder pulled an arrow back, and Ruby remembered she could fly. Oh, right. She fired a shot to break her momentum, activated her Semblance, and in a rush of rose petals returned to the top floor of the falling tower.

"Alright, Penny," she said to her friend, who was still hanging from a shard of metal impaled into the floor. "I'm here to officially cancel your self-destruct sequence!" She wouldn't be able to carry Penny with her Semblance; she was too heavy. Could Penny use her scythe as a mid-air pogo stick, or would they run into the same problem?

"Just as soon as I figure out how."

WWW

Yang climbed out of the hole in the wall, and felt a sense of vertigo and nausea as the building slowly fell behind her. Above her, the side of the tower became less a vertical climb and more an incline.

"I have an idea," Yang said to Weiss. "Speed glyphs, now. Send me up the wall."

"Yang, there's no way you'll get there in time."

"I don't care! I will pull her from the wreckage if I have to, but I won't leave her behind!"

Weiss shook her head, but she didn't argue. She flourished her sword, and a line of white snowflake designs appeared up the wall.

Yang raced up it as fast as she could. She had never been much of a sprinter; that had always been Ruby's shtick. But it wasn't a matter of what she was good at, it was a matter of what she needed to be, and right now, Yang Xiao Long needed to be fast.

WWW

Pyrrha Nikos could not fly. She could polarize a piece of metal—even her own armor—and have it carry her, but that obvious a use of her Semblance was discouraged in the arena.

She hated the arena. There was no risk in a regulated match, and the only challenge Pyrrha had ever had was self imposed, to see how lightly she could use her Semblance and still win.

But with lives at risk—not just rankings and reputation, but her friends—she disregarded her artificial limitations, and flew.

She held onto her shield as it carried her down town, racing against the falling building, passing it. She landed in the commercial district seconds before it hit the ground, and did something she swore she would never do.

She took Nora's advice.

"So let me get this straight," her teammate had said. "You can control metal. Like, everything as metal in it somewhere, so you can control pretty much everything, right? And you only use your Semblance to nudge things?"

"It's subtle," Pyrrha had replied.

"It's stupid! Slightly redirecting someone's attack isn't going to impress anyone! No, you gotta pick up the arena, and chuck it at them!"

Pyrrha had laughed, assuming—hoping—that Nora had been joking. "Oh, I couldn't do that!"

"Can't? Or won't?"

She stretched out her arms towards the tower, activated her Semblance, and for the first time in her life found out how much she could use instead of how little.

Something dropped from the sky that could have been a meteorite or a fallen angel, smashing a crater into the concrete and sending out a shockwave of flame. For a moment their eyes met—burning embers behind her mask—but they both had more important things to deal with. The woman in black fled into the night, and Pyrrha defied possibility.

The skyscraper fell. Slow. Slower.. The mental strain she felt was incredible … but not unbearable. She pushed the building to the side so it only crushed an empty street, and it landed far more gently than a structure that size had any right too.

She fell to her knees, not in exhaustion—well, not entirely, at least—but in ecstasy. If she had dedicated her training to raw force instead of precision, she might have been able to lift the tower instead of just setting it down.

"We're alive!" she heard someone from inside the wreckage squeal in delight.

Ruby!

Most of the windows had shattered on impact, and Ruby, in her formal dress and signature hood—with another girl Pyrrha didn't recognize—climbed out of one. "Take that, self-destruct sequence!" Ruby said. "Also, that phrase is really misleading, Penny. From now on, you can only say that you're going to self destruct if you're going to literally explode, not just try some crazy risky gambit that will only probably kill you, okay?"

The other girl nodded. "Is that what you say whenever you explode?"

"Well, no, but I've never exploded before. I mean, actually, I have, but only once, and that was on accident. It was horrible, I almost ended up with the nickname 'Craterface.' I'll have to tell you about it sometime never. But more importantly, we're alive! I don't know what happened, but right now, my working theory is that the CCT has built in industrial strength jetpacks to limit collateral damage in case of sabotage or natural disasters."

Pyrrha smiled. If Ruby ever designed a building, Pyrrha would bet it would end up with rockets, and they would serve a perfectly practical purpose. "I'm glad to see you're alright, Ruby," she said.

"Pyrrha!" Ruby ran up and hugged her. Pyrrha hugged her in return … and felt something warm and damp on her back.

"What's this?" she asked. "Is this blood? Ruby, are you alright?"

"I'm fine!" she said, backing away. "Really, I'm only bleeding a little bit. Penny's in way worse shape than I am. Pyrrha, this is Penny. Penny, Pyrrha. She can control magnets. You two must never fight each other."

"Understood," Penny said. Ruby's friend—she was short, with red hair and freckles—nodded distantly. She was also missing a limb.

"My goodness, you lost an arm!" Pyrrha said.

Penny nodded again. "Fortunately, I have gone into shock, diminishing the pain as well as most of my mental capacities by … an uncalculated amount."

She wasn't bleeding. In fact, her stump ended in metal and wires, a robotic prosthetic. Those were becoming more common these days, and Ruby bringing up Pyrrha's Semblance and warning them not to fight made more sense.

"What were you doing up there?" Pyrrha asked. "You literally brought down a building."

"But more importantly," Ruby said, "we brought down a supervillain."

"A supervillain."

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, Cinder, she's like the evilest person I've ever met, ended up destroying Beacon in the future, but this time, we caught her in the tower, and we kicked her butt!"

Future … when they had fought Roman Torchwick in a stolen Atlesian Paladin, Ruby had mentioned time travel. Well, if the girl didn't have at least a few eccentricities, she wouldn't fit in … but she had managed to make Jaune believe her, and Jaune barely believed in anything.

"Really. And you captured her?"

"Ha! No, you can't really capture someone like that, but you can knock her out a window. You can't spell 'defenestration' without … some synonym for awesome."

"I see," Pyrrha said slowly. "And Cinder … you said she destroyed Beacon?"

"Yeah, it was horrible. She teamed up with the White Fang, brought Grimm into the city, turned the robot army against us, and … well, that doesn't matter anymore."

Ruby was grinning, convinced that she had won, but Pyrrha knew better. The Communications Tower was a symbol of connection and civilization for Vale. Regardless of whether Ruby had averted some improvable disaster, by destroying the CCT she had ruined the Vytal Tournament. The people in charge wouldn't accept the allegations of a supposed time traveler, and they would need someone to blame.

"When you fought Cinder, was she wearing a mask?"

"Yeah, and all black." She stopped. "Wait, did you see something?"

Pyrrha turned away. Assuming that woman ran in a straight direction, she might be able to pick up her trail. "You should go back to the others. Find a paramedic for yourself, and at least an engineer for your friend. I'll handle this."

When it came to fighting Grimm, Pyrrha was merely above average, but she had spent her whole life fighting people. It was time to make use of that.

"Pyrrha, you can't!" Ruby said. "Cinder kills you in the future!"

She stopped.

"I saw it," Ruby continued. "We were evacuating the city, but nearly everyone was too hurt or exhausted to keep fighting. Jaune called, and he was frantic, asking us to save you, and I got there just in time to watch Cinder put an arrow in you. Pyrrha, please, do not go after her!"

Is that how I go? The knowledge of her death should have frightened her, but instead she found herself as calm as a summer's morning. If Ruby was right and that woman would be responsible for destroying Beacon, then win or lose, Pyrrha would have fought her to the end. That was simply who she was. And if letting Cinder go free put the entire city at risk, then there was only one choice.

She turned and smiled. "You know, I think you really are from the future. Tell me, Ruby, do you believe in destiny?"

Her eyes grew wide. "No!" she said, shaking her head. "No, no, no!"

Pyrrha smiled again. "Then I have nothing to worry about."

She turned and ran into the night. She was a Huntress. It was time for her to go hunting, and she had always been best at fighting humans. If there was such a thing as destiny, then this was hers.

WWW

Yang had never scaled a falling building before, but as the tower got lower, she didn't even need Weiss' glyphs. Instead of crashing into the ground the building slowed down and settled gently into the street, which was odd, but at this point, what else was new?

It was still the coolest school dance she had ever been to, though. Beacon should let her team plan all the events. Could CFVY put on a show with this much collateral damage? Not likely.

Ruby was fine, of course. Yang found her just outside the tower wearing the dress that Weiss had forced her into and the hood that Weiss hadn't permitted. Her friend, Penny, was lying on the road and didn't look to be in the best of shape, but Ruby was fine.

"Yang!" Ruby said, looking up.

Yang hopped down. "Did you miss me?"

"I need your help! Penny's hurt. I need to get her to General Ironwood, but she's too heavy."

"It's a good thing your friend's too unconscious to hear you say that," Yang said, getting a better look at the red-head. "Yikes! What happened to her arm?"

"She lost it in the fight. Then she went into shock. Then she passed out."

"Huh." It looked like just a mechanical arm, and those could be repaired. "Was this before or after you knocked over a building?"

"She did that one."

"Well, either way, never let anyone tell you that you don't know how to show a girl a good time." She felt around the girl's neck for her pulse—and got nothing. Oh no. "Um, Ruby?"

"It's okay, that's normal."

"I think she's dead."

"No, that's normal. Penny, wake up!" The girl opened her eyes, looked around, and then went back to sleep. "See? I just need to get her to General Ironwood. He'll know what to do."

"If you say so." She lifted Penny off the ground, and found herself straining under the girl's weight. She didn't look any bigger than Ruby, and Yang could practically juggle her, but Penny was something else. "You're right! She is heavy. And can live without a pulse. What's going on?"

"It's a long story."

"Well, you can tell me on the way."

Ruby looked off into the distance. "Actually, there's something I need to take care of first. Just focus on getting Penny to Ironwood. Also, don't trust Emerald or Mercury. Emerald is really tricky and she can make hallucinations with her Semblance. Mercury is just a jerk."

"Yeah, I gathered that," Yang said.

"When you get done, I may need you and the others to come find me. I'll leave you a trail of rose petals to follow."

"Simple enough." Yang hesitated. "What are you planning on doing?"

"The same thing I've been trying to do since I got here."

Yang raised an eyebrow. "Save the future?"

Ruby shook her head. "No. I'm going to save Pyrrha."

WWW

"Cinder! Where are you? What happened?"

"We've been compromised. Is Mercury with you?"

"He's … around. What do you mean, we've been compromised?"

"I mean we've been compromised! I'm working on the details, but for now we're pulling out. Find Mercury, and get to a safehouse. I'll contact you later."

WWW

Cinder was growing to despise robots. She had been thrilled when Ironwood began shipping the units to Beacon en masse; if she could infect them with Arthur's virus she could implicate all of Atlas in Beacon's inevitable fall, but after being swarmed by squadron after squadron of those tin men, she wanted to destroy them more and more and control them less.

Also, she was forced to leave a trail of scrap metal. Not the best way of making an inconspicuous escape, but as soon as she made it beyond the perimeter, she could stop fighting.

Stop fighting. She never thought the night would come when she looked forward to that, especially after she had gained the Maiden's power. But she was only half a Maiden, half of what she was meant to be.

A force crashed into her from behind, knocking her down. She rolled to her feet in time to deflect a flying shield and a flurry of sword strikes. Cinder jumped back and saw her newest assailant.

Pyrrha Nikos. Even without research, the girl was famous. A prodigy among prodigies, an undefeated record as a duelist, and no recorded Semblance. At any other time, Cinder would have loved to fight her, to show her what true power was, but right now, she just wanted to be done.

"Cinder," Pyrrha said. "I've heard terrible things about you."

"And I'm beginning to wonder why I bothered wearing a mask in the first place," she said, taking it off. Her cover was blown anyway. "It seems like everyone I've met to night is dolled up for a ball, and here I am feeling underdressed."

"You should have gone anyway. You might have had more fun at the dance than knocking over buildings."

"I highly doubt that." She hadn't knocked over any buildings tonight, but she'd be surprised if people didn't blame her for that. "If anything, I've had too much fun. I've even summoned my own personal killjoy. Unless, of course, you're here to play with me instead."

"I'm not here to play, Cinder," Pyrrha said. "I'm here to stop you."

Cinder laughed. "Stop me? You silly girl. You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"I know what you're capable of, and like I said, it's terrible. The only thing I don't know is what I'm capable of."

Pyrrha attacked, thrusting with her spear. Cinder stepped back and felt for the rhythm. One, two, three! She dismissed her blades, grabbed the spear right below the head, and let a lifetime of rage, pain, and hunger flow into it.

The bronze turned to burning gold, warped under her hand, and shattered.

"You said you weren't here to play," Cinder said, her scimitars reforming in her hands. "Forgive me for taking you at your word."

WWW

To her shame, Pyrrha's first instinct was to forfeit. That was simply what one did in a match, and there was no shame in leaving the ring when the fight was clearly over. But this wasn't a duel; this was a death match, and she would fight to whatever end she merited.

She had never fought without her weapon, though. A military force might have standardized armaments, but a Huntress was defined by the weapon she carried, hand crafted to fit her perfectly. Without Miló, what was Pyrrha?

According to her reputation, she was invincible. She held her shield up and backed away before Cinder's attack, losing ground, stumbling over broken robots. She had never needed to bluff in a fight before, but it worked. Cinder never saw the robot's rifles rise into the air until they opened fire.

Cinder screamed as bullets bounced off her Aura, and she flung shards of glass in every direction. Pyrrha ducked behind her shield, but the floating guns broke into pieces, shattered by crystals. Well, that trick was only going to work once anyway. She did a handstand backwards over a parked car and, with a silent apology to its owner, threw it at her opponent.

The car pinned Cinder to a wall, leaving a crater in the brickwork. Cinder brought her hand palm down onto the vehicle, and it exploded, sending parts and shrapnel in ever direction. Only flames remained, and Cinder walked across them unscathed as though the queen of hell.

"Polarity," she said with one eye burning. "That would have been much more useful to know if I were planning on letting you live."

"I see you have pyrokinesis," Pyrrha replied. "It suits you."

Cinder smiled. "Pyrokinesis? I am far greater than anything that can be confined by words. Still, I am content to watch you burn."

She stretched out her hand and the flames at her feet rose and swirled around her, forming a coiled snake above her head. The snake attacked, but Pyrrha sidestepped out of the way—and right onto a patch of asphalt that had begun to glow gold. Not waiting to see what it would do, she jumped off of it right before it exploded and nearly landed on another patch of glowing ground.

She threw her shield under her, held it in place with her mind, and jumped off of it. She magnetically tossed it at Cinder and grabbed onto a street light, ripping the metal pole from the sidewalk. She swung it with two hands and one mind, and sent Cinder flying into a wall just as the woman finished stepping around the shield.

Nora would be proud.

Cinder rose one last time on shaking legs, coughed up a trickle of blood that dripped down her chin, and fell to her knees.

"Give up," Pyrrha said, holding out her pole. "You've lost."

WWW

Cinder was drained of all her Aura, exhausted beyond belief, and every breath she took strained against her fractured ribs. But that was nothing compared to the pain of defeat.

And she was defeated, kneeling before her enemy—no, a pawn of the enemy too proud to face her himself—because she no longer had the strength to stand. If Cinder had her heart ripped from her chest, she could die with a smile on her face if she could die knowing that she had won, but this?

What had she done to end up like this? There must have been a moment when she could have changed the direction she was headed. Maybe if she pulled out of the CCT when she found Ruby Rose and that other girl waiting for her—but no, by then Ruby already knew too much. Maybe if Cinder hadn't tried to infiltrate Beacon as a student from Haven and had come up with another way to find the Fall Maiden.

Or maybe it had started with the Fall Maiden herself. It had seemed so perfect in the beginning. Like a fairy tale. Like destiny. Salem had needed someone of the right age and sex to inherit a Maiden's power, and all Cinder had to do was kill some girl.

Maybe if she had struck sooner and finished the job before Qrow Branwen had shown up, then she wouldn't have to care who knew her secrets, she wouldn't have to infiltrate anything.

And she wouldn't have that primal flame within her, yearning, hungering for its other half. She'd be whole.

But that was just a dream. Hope was a zero sum game, and if she wanted anything, she'd have to take it from someone else. Now Pyrrha was going to … she was going to … accept her surrender?

No, giving up wouldn't help her. Autumn was still alive, so Ozpin would simply have Cinder killed to restore the original Fall Maiden … if he knew what Cinder was. She had used her Maiden powers tonight, but not against anyone who would recognize them. Maybe if she feigned weakness she could wait until her captors let their guard down, escape, and start over.

Could she do it? Could she surrender if that was what it took to stay alive?

She fell forward and landed face first in the dirt. She was more exhausted than she had ever been, and it was only her pride that kept her from falling asleep where she lay.

"Hello, Jaune," she heard Pyrrha say. "Yes, I'm fine, I … well, it's a long story. Suffice to say, this isn't how I was hoping this evening would go." She paused. "Yes, I suppose there is still next year. Anyway, I've captured the one who knocked over the CCT—I did say it was a long story, Jaune. I'll tell you all about it when I get back. Right now, I need someone to secure the terrorist." She paused again. "To be honest, I don't think local law enforcement can handle her. Could you Professor Goodwitch or someone I have the perpetrator at … where am I? At Marigold Avenue and Curds Way. Yes, by that old bookstore. Shame it closed."

Wait. Just wait. Keep your head down, don't look anyone in the eye, and you won't get hurt.

But … was that she wanted? Was she so in love with her own life that she would do whatever it took to survive? No. She wanted … she wanted …

I want to be strong.

They said that the strong lived while the weak died, but that was nonsense. Cowards lived. Staying down would keep her alive, not because it was an act of strength, but because it was an act of cowardice.

I want to be feared.

That was another zero sum game. Either you feared them, or you made them fear you. When everyone feared her, she would fear nothing.

I want to be powerful.

Strength was a choice, but power, that was was something greater. Deeper. Destiny. And all she had to do …

All she had to do was kill some girl.

She rose and struck. There was no planning in her attack, no subtlety, just desperation. Pyrrha stretched out her hand on reflex to push away her weapon with her Semblance, but Cinder's scimitar was made of glass, and the blade shattered the girl's Aura and plunged deep into her flesh.

Pyrrha fell backwards, and Cinder fell on top of her, letting her weapon disintegrate into nothing. Pyrrha's eyes grew wide as she felt both her victory and her life stolen from her without warning, while Cinder... Cinder felt exultant. She was so close she could practically taste the fear in Pyrrha's eyes, and she could feel the girl's hot, wet blood seeping into her clothes.

It was the difference between ending a life, and taking one.

She stood up. Cinder still needed to go into hiding, probably leave the city, and replan practically everything, but that didn't matter. She had won. She smiled.

WWW

By the time Ruby had found them, Pyrrha had already won. That surprised her. Hadn't Cinder killed her in the future? But maybe she had just been in better shape back then. This time, Cinder had taken a heavy beating from Ruby and Penny (but mostly Penny) before Pyrrha even showed up, so maybe that was enough to make a difference.

Ruby watched them through the scope of her sniper rifle, worried that if Pyrrha caught her she'd scold her for coming instead of tending to her "injuries." It was just a scratch, really. Sure, it made it hurt to run, but it didn't stop her from running, and …

And in an instant, it all turned upside down. Cinder struck like a snake, and suddenly it was Pyrrha who was on the ground and Cinder who was standing over her, one eye burning. Smiling.

Ruby's hands trembled. No. No, no, no. She had failed. Again. "You have to save Pyrrha!" Even with a two week head start, all she had accomplished was to watch her die again.

"You want to be a hero? Then die like every other Huntsman in history!"

If anyone had died like a hero, it was Pyrrha. But what did that even mean, to die like a hero? You didn't need to be a hero to die; anyone could do it. Even Roman died in the alternate timeline. It didn't make you special. You didn't become a hero by dying. You became a hero by … by fighting to the end.

And it wasn't the end yet, because Ruby was not finished.

She stilled her hands, calmed her mind, and took a shot.

Every time she had tried this before, Cinder had deflected the bullets with a casual ease, but that was then. Now, everyone was on their last legs, and Cinder took the shot to the head and dropped.

For a moment, she didn't know what to do. She couldn't keep on fighting because the fight was finally over, so she … so she got up and forced herself to check on her friend. She walked, but soon began to run, building momentum, gripping the hope that there was still something she could do.

By the time she reached Pyrrha, she hurt all over, body and soul, and Pyrrha was on her back staring at the shattered moon. "R-ruby?"

"Pyrrha! You're alive!"

"How bad is it?" she whispered.

Ruby examined her. It was hard to tell because Pyrrha was already wearing a blood-red dress, but she saw a gut wound that was leaking like a faucet. That was better than an arrow to the heart, right? You needed a heart to live, but you only needed your guts to eat, so Pyrrha would be fine until breakfast tomorrow morning.

But there was still all the blood to worry about. How much did you need to live? This was exactly the sort of stuff they should have taught her at school. Could she cauterize the wound? One of the cars had caught on fire and exploded, so she could try, but she didn't know the first thing about that sort of thing.

"Hey, Pyrrha? I know you're not feeling well, but I need you to tell me everything you know about first aid."

Pyrrha didn't respond.

"It's okay, if anyone deserves a nap, it's you. I'll figure something out."

A few feet away, what was left of Cinder's face was still smiling, as though mocking her. Ruby tried to piece together a solution with the tools she had on hand, but all she saw was red. Red hair, a red dress, red blood … red like roses.

And then she had it. She propped up Pyrrha into a sitting position, took off the hood that she had worn for nearly her whole life, and wrapped it around Pyrrha's waist like a bandage. After that, she stayed with her until help came.

WWW

Amber breathed in sharply and woke up in a panic. Where was she? What was she doing here?

She had been attacked. Ambushed. A three-person team attacked her on the road, and then one of them had a Grimm crawl out of her hand, and, and …

And then she was captured, stuffed in this, this pod, to be … studied? Well, whatever the case, she wasn't planning to stay to find out. Power pulsed through her, like a raging storm, like life. She focused that power against the metal shell around her, and released.

The pod burst open and she stepped out onto cold marble tiles, finding herself in a dark room. It was huge, with ceilings at least a hundred feet high, and the sparse lights gave the room a sickly, green glow.

There was a man in the room with gray hair and a lean build, facing the opposite direction, ignoring her display of power. "The circumstances are hardly ideal for our meeting," he said. "You find yourself in a strange room, half dressed, far from home. It's only natural that you would regard everything I say with extreme skepticism."

Amber realized she was in her underwear, and as soon as she noticed that, clothes grew over her skin. It wasn't the flashiest of her powers, but it came naturally to her, and it helped her avoid embarrassing first impressions with mad scientists in secret laboratories.

The man turned around, as though he were simply waiting for her to get dressed. He rested both hands on a cane in front of him and looked at her through bespectacled eyes. "But believe me, Amber, when I tell you that you are safer now than you have ever been since you inherited the Maiden's powers. My name is Professor Ozpin, and I'd like to welcome you to Beacon."

WWW

A/n Have you ever read any of those crazy long fanfics that go on for over a hundred chapters that could crush a small dog if they were ever published into a book? Yeah, I can't do that. I toyed with a couple of ideas that could drag this story on for a while longer, but considering how long it takes me to write a single chapter, I decided to do something sane instead. I know, I know, a controversial choice, but it's mine. This is the second to last chapter of Destiny, and the next one is going to be pretty much an epilogue where Ruby wakes up in bed after the fall of Beacon and finds out that she dreamed the whole time travel story because she couldn't cope with the bitter reality of life (I won't). Or where I tie up all the loose ends. One of the two.

As usual, I'd like to give a huge thanks to Magery for proofreading this chapter and giving me some much needed advice on how to handle different parts of it. I wouldn't have gotten this far in the story without him. The same goes to my readers who left reviews to give me feedback on what you thought. Until next time with the final chapter.


	7. Epilogue

No Such Thing as Destiny

Epilogue

Mercury figured it wouldn't be professional to fall asleep when the mission was in jeopardy, but he hadn't had time to grab a comic book before Cinder had ordered the withdrawal. Besides, Cinder hadn't told him to stay awake. In fact, she hadn't told him or Emerald anything since the tower fell at midnight.

So he took a nap in an abandoned warehouse waiting for Cinder to show up. Or at least tried to. Emerald kept on pacing back and forth, _worrying._ Seriously, what was even the point? Cinder didn't pay them to worry. Ever since she got her magic powers, the only reason she needed them was to fill up team slots.

He opened his eyes to see Emerald checking news reports on her scroll. "Would you cut that out? I'm trying to sleep."

"They're not showing her picture," Emerald said. "They're not showing any of our pictures. The CCT was destroyed in an 'anonymous terrorist attack.' Why is that? The last thing Cinder said to us was that we've been compromised, so why aren't we on Vale's Most Wanted?"

"I know," Mercury said. "What do we have to do to get some recognition around here? Knock down a building?"

"I'm going out to have a look around."

"Good idea. Sure, Cinder told us to stay here and wait for her, but you know her. She loves it when we show initiative and think for ourselves. Oh, wait, no, I was thinking of someone else."

Emerald rolled her eyes. "She might be in trouble."

 _That_ would be the day. "I'm not coming with you."

"You weren't invited."

He laughed. "I can hear you missing me."

"Nope," she said. "That's just your massive, throbbing ego you're hearing."

"It is pretty massive," he agreed.

"I'll give you a call in case I need something kicked."

"That's why I'm here."

WWW

"Mercury! Wake up!"

Mercury groaned and opened his eyes. Wha … was it morning already? Emerald stood over him, not in her usual clothes or the green dress she had been wearing when she left, but in something freshly stolen. Mercury was still wearing his tux, and it had gotten stained with more dust—and _Dust_ —than he had planned.

"Did you find Cinder?"

"She's dead."

Mercury took a moment to process that. "You mean that figuratively, right? Like her _signal's_ dead."

"No, you idiot! I mean she's _dead_."

"What?" No, that wasn't possible. Even in the beginning, Cinder had been terrifyingly strong. She was fast, she was ruthless, and she had a killer instinct that made him feel warm and cold at the same time. But after she had devoured half of what was basically a _demigod_ , she had become an army all by herself. _"How?"_

"She was fighting Pyrrha Nikos."

"She's not _really_ invincible."

"No," Emerald agreed. "Nikos was last seen boarding an ambulance in a stretcher. But during their fight, someone shot Cinder in the head with a sniper rifle. Now, who do we know who uses a sniper rifle?"

"No one who could take down Cinder, that's for sure. Wait, you don't mean …"

Emerald nodded, and Mercury noticed that it wasn't just her irises that were red. "It makes sense, doesn't it? This whole time, that girl has always been in our way, has always known just a little bit too much. Even when we first met her in the hallway—do you remember that? She pulled her scythe out like she wanted to kill us, and we just ignored it like she was some eccentric brat! I talked to her at the party last night to see if she was dangerous, but I … I …" She turned away. "We're going to take her down."

"Just the two of us?" Staying in Vale after the mission went south didn't seem smart, but Mercury _had_ been on worse dates.

"We'll contact that umbrella girl, Neo," Emerald said. "I'm sure we can talk her into helping us without much trouble."

"Yeah, but there's a problem with that. First, she'll want us to help her break Torchwick out of prison."

"That doesn't matter."

"Second … Torchwick hates us."

"That doesn't matter."

"And we hate him."

"That doesn't matter! Cinder's dead, Mercury! Cinder's dead, and Ruby killed her! _That's_ what matters. That's the _only_ thing that does."

WWW

Ruby woke up, not just feeling tired, but drained. She had saved Beacon, but destroyed a small part of it. She had saved Penny, but she had still gotten hurt pretty bad and Pyrrha was—she'd drop by the hospital as soon as she could to visit her. She'd defeated a super villain, but … but she had killed someone. Ruby had wanted to become a Huntress to kill monsters; she hadn't expected _people_ to be part of that group.

She got dressed slowly, and one by one her team joined her. "You don't have to come with me if you don't want to," Ruby said. "I'm only going to visit Pyrrha now so I can fit it in before my meeting with Ozpin."

"See, now you're _really_ acting crazy," Weiss said, tying her hair to the side. "Remember what happened last time we let you run off on your own? You ended up getting into a fight with someone that even Professor Goodwitch was afraid of."

Ruby smiled at that, taking it for what it was: an apology, by someone who really, really hated apologizing. Weiss hadn't believed her from the start—none of them had—but each one of them had been with her in their own time and in their own way. Ruby stepped forward and gave Weiss a hug.

"Oh, so we're doing this now?" Weiss said. "Okay, that's fine, I suppose this is merited."

"Hey, are we having a group hug?" Yang said. "Count me in on that action!"

"What?" Weiss said. "No, don't …" She squirmed a bit as Yang put her arms around both of them. "Right. Now _this_ is happening."

"Hey, Blake!" Yang said. "You wanna get in on this?"

Blake shook her head. "Not really. I have these personal space issues. But rest assured I'm hugging all of you mentally."

"Yeah, that's okay," Yang said. "I know where you sleep."

"Well, that's terrifying," Blake said. "So are we going to the hospital or something?"

Ruby nodded, and the four of them filed out the door. "We should invite JNPR to go with us."

"I bet you five lien they're already there," Yang said.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "That's a sucker bet and you know it. I'd be surprised if they didn't spend the night in the waiting room, because let's be honest: without Pyrrha, they're just Team JNR, and that's not even a color."

Ruby knocked on their door all the same, and to her surprise, it opened. "Ah! Jaune! What are you doing here?"

Jaune blinked, still in his pajamas. "Uh, I live here?"

"No, I mean, I thought you'd be … Pyrrha!" She slid under Jaune's arm into the room.

"Sure," Jaune said. "Come on in."

"Pyrrha!" Ruby said again, finding her sitting up in her bed. "I thought you'd be in the hospital!"

The rest of her team followed. "You know," Yang said, "we've been neighbors this whole time, and I've never been here. Your room seems a lot smaller than ours."

"It's the same size," Blake said. "They just don't have bunk beds."

"Hold on!" Nora said. "You guys got bunk beds? How come we don't have bunk beds? I want bunk beds!"

"That would be an efficient use of space," Ren agreed.

"You know what this calls for?" Yang said. "A party! We'll skip the fancy dresses, decorations, and all the other schools that no one cares about, and go straight to the part where we share with you the fine art of wrecking your room with _style_!"

"I don't know," Pyrrha said. "I just barely recovered from the last party."

"But you still had fun, right?" Yang asked.

"About that," Ruby said. "How did you get better so fast? You seemed in really bad shape last time I saw you."

"Well, about that," Pyrrha said. "It's actually a pretty interesting story." She turned to Jaune, and smiled. "Would you like to tell it?"

Jaune shuffled awkwardly. "Well, it's not _that_ interesting."

"Ooh! Ooh!" Nora said. "Can I tell it? Can I? Okay, it was the dead of night."

"Last night," Ren said.

"Then the moon turned red."

"That never happened."

"And then, we were attacked by ninjas!"

Ren sighed. "Jaune discovered his Semblance. He heals people. The end."

"Or is it?" Nora asked mysteriously.

"You can heal people?" Ruby asked. "That's amazing!"

"Yeah, I wanna see!" Yang said.

"Well, it doesn't work unless you're injured," Jaune said.

Yang nodded. "Nora. Hit me."

Nora grinned. "With pleasure!"

"Not here!" Jaune said, frowning. "This is our room!"

Yang winked at him. "It's party time, Doc."

Ruby smiled, feeling a great weight lifted from her soul, a weight that she had been carrying since the last desperate cry for help that she had heard Jaune utter before the end of time. _Save Pyrrha!_ Pyrrha: saved. Penny: saved. Future —

Nora smashed her hammer into Yang, sending her flying through the wall and crashing straight into Cardin in the next room over. "Ow!" he said. "What the actual hell, people? Were you aiming for me?"

"Nope," Yang said, standing up and looking around. "Just lucky."

"Yes," Nora said.

"Hey, are you doing yoga?" Yang asked.

"No!" Cardin said. "I was … reading porn."

"On a yoga mat?"

"Don't judge me! And get out of my room unless you're looking to get hurt!"

Yang laughed.

"What?" Cardin asked. "What's so funny? Stop laughing!"

Ruby had gotten a cut on her back the night before during her fight with Cinder, but she had gotten stitches and it wasn't bothering her much. She could have asked Jaune to heal it for her, but then everyone would want to see it getting healed and she'd have to lift her shirt up and that would be awkward. Besides, everyone was having fun. Ruby smiled and left the room. She shouldn't keep Ozpin waiting.

WWW

Ruby remembered when she had talked to the Headmaster after the first timeline's dance. She hadn't managed to stop anyone, but she had still pressed every button on the elevator on the way up because she was just that nervous about confronting Ozpin.

 _This_ time, she skipped the thirteenth story, because that would just be unlucky. Well, what was _really_ unlucky was going out in public without her signature cloak, but after using it for a bandage the night before, it, uh, it needed to be washed.

When she finally made it to the top, Ozpin was in a meeting with someone else. He glanced up at her over his spectacles and promptly wrapped things up. "It will take some time to adjust; there's no going around it, and no point rushing it. But if you ever need anything, Amber, my door is always open. Now, Professor Goodwitch would be the best person to help you through the details. She's one floor down."

The girl he was talking to, Amber, stood up and started walking toward the elevator.

"Ah, Ruby," Ozpin said. "Have a seat."

As soon as he said that, Amber spun on her heel and stared at her. "You're Ruby?"

Ruby hesitated. "Yes?" Had they met? Amber didn't look familiar, with her country style clothes, brown hair, and a scar on her face that made her look like she had gotten in a fight with something awesome. That meant that she knew Ruby by reputation alone. "Um, I don't know what you heard about me, but I didn't do it."

"Actually," Ozpin said, sipping out of his mug, "in this case, I believe you did, Miss Rose."

 _Way to throw me under the bus!_ "Okay, I may have knocked over the CCT last night, but it was an accident, and I can fix it! Somehow."

Amber reached her hand out as if to touch her, but hesitated as though seeing an invisible "Do Not Touch" sign next to her, and instead dropped to one knee.

"I will never," Amber said, "be able to pay you back for what you have done for me, but if you ever need anything, Ruby Rose, ask me, and I will give it to you."

"Um, okay." Wow, she did _not_ like the Communications Tower. Weird. "Well, my friends are throwing a party later. You could come to that if you like." _Unless I get expelled._

Amber nodded solemnly, stood, and left.

Ozpin indicated the chair in front of his desk, and Ruby sat down. "So," he said. "At approximately eleven forty-five last night, you left the Vytal Festival Formal with one Penny Polendina of Atlas and broke into the Communications Tower. There you ambushed one Cinder Fall of Haven. The ensuing conflict destroyed the tower entirely, and Miss Fall fled the scene only to be pursued by Pyrrha Nikos and yourself. The final conflict resulted in Fall's death. Is that correct?"

"Um, yes?"

Ozpin straightened his glasses. "Now, in our line of work, luck can sometimes be an adequate substitute for reliable information and careful planning—but this? This was not the product of luck, was it?"

Ruby hesitated. "Am I in trouble?"

"Trouble?" he repeated. "Goodness, no. You are being commended. I've had Mr. Branwen scouring the continent looking for Miss Fall, and then you went and eliminated her yourself."

Ruby blinked. "Uncle Qrow was looking for her?"

He nodded. "Yes, he was positively livid when he found out that you had gotten to her first. Green with envy, I'd say. Then he ranted something ironic about reckless endangerment and sloppy security, but the connection broke down before he could finish. Long distance calls don't work very well with the tower decommissioned. But enough of that. How did you know to even look for her?"

"Um …" Hardly anyone had believed her so far, but she couldn't exactly lie to the Headmaster, could she? "Do you promise not to laugh?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Miss Rose, while there are many things beyond my power, I can assure you that I can promise you not to laugh."

She took a deep breath. "I'm from the future."

"I see."

She hesitated. "You're not laughing."

"You're not joking."

"No. No I'm not."

"Perhaps," Ozpin said, "you'd like to start from the beginning."

WWW

"… then I woke up with a really bad headache in the hallway a few weeks ago, and that's how I got here."

"Interesting," Ozpin said.

"So, you're taking me breaking the laws of physics really well."

"Am I?"

"Can I ask you something, Professor? Are you from the future too?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Me, from the future? Whatever gave you that idea?"

Ruby looked around the room. "Well, I see a lot of clock designs in your office, gears and minute hands and stuff."

"Interesting. No, I am from the past, like most people. But if it helps you understand where I'm coming from, there is a belief, a philosophy, if you will. It says that everything in the world can be understood, that the universe follows certain laws without fail and that each of those laws can be contained within the human mind. That philosophy is often known as Complete and Utter Nonsense."

"Oh."

"Now, I don't mean to nitpick, Miss Rose, because you did a magnificent job with recent events, but if you ever return to the past again, I would like to be the first to know. I believe I mentioned as much in the handout everyone received during orientation."

"You did?"

He nodded. "Page twelve, I believe. Didn't you read it?"

She hesitated. "I … skimmed it."

He sighed. "I really ought to put that part in larger print. Oh, before I forget, I have something for you." He pulled a sheet of paper out of his desk drawer and handed it to her. It read:

 _CERTIFICATE OF TIME TRAVEL_

I, _Headmaster Ozpin_ , declare _ to be of sound mind and to have traveled through time from the date of _/_/_ in an alternate timeline to_/_/_ of the current timeline, and should be taken seriously concerning any and all prophetic claims pertaining to the period between these two dates.

"Now, if you could sign and date it," he said, "this may be of use to you among your more skeptical associates."

"Wow, thanks! Um, how many of these do you have?"

He shrugged. "I can always print off more when I run out."

She nodded. "Makes sense. Hey, since you're already giving me stuff, could I ask for something else?"

He smiled. "Of course, Miss Rose. What would you like?"

"See, a while ago I was kicked out of the Vytal Tournament for cutting off one of Cinder's henchmen's leg during a sparring match, but since Mercury was evil the whole time, could I get back in?"

He considered that. "To be honest, given in your timeline Cinder used the Tournament to bring about the fall of Beacon, and that it was to be broadcast through the Communications Tower which is currently undergoing extended repairs, I was of half a mind to cancel the event altogether."

Ruby's jaw dropped. "What? You can't! The Vytal Tournament was the best thing ever last time, and we barely got through the double's round before Cinder started wrecking everything! I can't have saved the future and ruined the Tournament, Headmaster! It just doesn't work that way!"

He cocked his head. "Well, I suppose with Cinder out the picture, the danger has diminished. It will be postponed, there's no going around that, but when it does happen, I can promise that you will have a part in it."

She let out a sigh. "Thanks. I was worried I had done one of those, you know, butterfly of death things. Oh—one last thing. You know my friend Penny? She shot Cinder in the face with a laser canon? Well, she told me once that she wanted to transfer to Beacon. That was in an alternate timeline, so I don't know if it still holds, but if you could, I don't know, pull some strings? Talk to General Ironwood about it?"

He frowned. "I don't see why my influence would be necessary. Until one school declares war on another, any student can transfer from one Huntsman academy to another with only a slight modicum of paperwork."

"Really? Even though she's a robot?"

He blinked. "She's a robot? Well now. That's interesting."

Ruby covered her mouth. "Whoops. I thought you already knew."

"No, I confess I did not. But tell me, your friend who was so helpful in your fight—did she have an Aura?"

Ruby nodded. "She told me that she was the first synthetic person who could make one."

"The first," he repeated. "But perhaps not the last. A manufactured soul. Oh, James, what are you doing?"

"Hmm?"

He let out a breath. "Aura cannot exist without the soul, and even an artificial one requires self-awareness and free will."

"So … you're saying Penny's a real girl?"

"I'm saying that there is a fine line between an advanced weapon and a slave race, a distinction that we cannot afford to confuse." He leaned back in his chair. "Very well, Miss Rose. I cannot promise you that your synthetic friend will _choose_ to transfer to Beacon, but she _will_ have that choice. Does that satisfy you?"

Ruby wasn't sure what Ozpin meant by "slave race," but she forced a grin and gave him a thumbs up. "I think that's everything." She folded up her time travel certificate, put it in her pocket, and started for the door.

"One last thing," Ozpin said. "What did you just say, two minutes ago?"

"Uh, two minutes? I said that Penny shot Cinder in the face with a laser canon … maybe?"

"You said that you saved the future."

Ruby hesitated. "Yeah. Why?"

Ozpin frowned thoughtfully. "No reason. No reason at all. Carry on, Miss Rose, and have a nice day."

WWW

"Alright, party time!" Yang said, perhaps more loudly than she needed to, but exactly as loudly as she wanted to. "What do we got? We have the two coolest teams in Beacon, RWBY and JNPR, and the fun half of Team … sorry, are you guys SNNN or SSSN? I always get that mixed up."

"SSSN," Sun said. "But right now we're just SN until the other two get here."

"Team SN it is," Yang said. "And then we got some loners. Ruby, care to introduce them?"

"Okay, first off, here's Penny! A lot of you have already met her, but for those of you who haven't … her name is Penny." Okay, maybe she wasn't as good at this sort of thing as Yang was, but Ruby had her hood back (freshly laundered), and that made her feel at least ten times as confident.

Penny smiled politely. "It's a pleasure to meet you all." She had a mechanical arm now. Well, she had two mechanical arms, but this time one was _obviously_ mechanical.

"She fights with flying swords that shoot lasers. She hit Cinder in the face with them, like, twice last night, and I wish I had a video."

"I do have a video," Penny said. "I recorded the whole thing."

Ruby blinked. "You _do_? Oh, we are so watching that later. On repeat." She hesitated. "Oh, and one last thing. I may or may not have kidnapped her from a bunch of Atlesian engineers, so I'm not saying that military robots _will_ break in here and try to kill us, I'm just saying that they might."

"Awesome!" Yang said. "New friends _and_ live entertainment!"

"I was wondering why you were having this in our room instead of yours," Jaune said.

"Okay, who's next?" Yang said.

"Well, next up is Amber. I just met her today, but she seems cool. Uh, I think she's new here."

"Actually I've been in Beacon for a few months," Amber said. "But I just woke up from a coma last night."

"It was a crazy night," Ruby agreed. "So what weapon do you use?"

Amber hesitated. "Sometimes I use a walking stick?"

Ruby nodded. "Subtle. Do you have a cool Semblance?"

"Something like that." Amber's eyes burst into flames, and she began to float a foot above the floor.

"That _is_ a cool Semblance!" When Cinder fought, sometimes one of her eyes would burst into flames, but only one, so Ruby doubted that there was any relation.

Amber smiled. "That's really all I can do indoors without causing property damage."

Yang laughed. "Aw, you're worried about property damage. That's adorable. But seriously, let loose. This is a party, remember? And we got Professor Goodwitch on speed dial."

"But don't let loose too much," Jaune said. "Some of us live here."

"Okay," Yang said. "So who's the last one?"

"Um, actually I don't know," Ruby admitted. "I just met her today and I don't think she can talk."

The last girl smiled and mimed zipping her lips shut.

"I like her so far," Blake said.

"But her eyes sometimes change color when she blinks, so that's pretty cool," Ruby added.

"Hold on," Weiss said. "If you just met her, and you still don't know her, why'd you invite her to the party?"

Ruby shrugged. "She brought ice cream."

Weiss nodded. "Fair enough."

Yang clapped her hands. "Alright, now that we got introductions out of the way, now let's get to the fun part—wrecking the room with style!"

WWW

A/n Well, I managed to actually finish a story! If you've been following some of my other stuff, you know how rare that really is. Let me tell you, ending stories is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Clearly, I need more practice.

As for how this story turned out, I am mostly happy with it. I ended up leaving most of the characters besides Ruby in the background more than I wanted to, but with Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Jaune, Nora, Ren, Pyrrha, Sun, Neptune, Cinder, Mercury, Emerald, Penny, and Ozpin, the stage was a bit full, especially with only seven chapters—and to be honest, seven chapters is about my limit. There are people out there with hundred chapter fics, but I'm thrilled when I can get into the double digits.

Anyway, enough about that. Since I finally managed to finish this story, let's do some acknowledgements, shall we? Many of you (well, all of you, really) have read this story, but a blessed, chosen few have left reviews. You know who you are, but I want to make sure that everyone else here does, too, because do you know what happens when I write a chapter and don't get any reviews? Nothing. Absolutely nothing happens. But something did happen, and it's all thanks to the following people:

Reshin Amara, you wrote the first review for this story, and have left a review for nearly every chapter after that. Mastermind4892, sometimes I swear you were more enthusiastic about this story that I was. Prince Podincherry, you have a great eye for details and more than once picked up a few inconsistencies that I missed. Parselmaster, you were very consistent and supportive. You too, Merendinoemiliano and Kharki Takan. Sunder the Gold, you put a lot of thought and detail into your reviews, and I loved reading them. Same for you, LordsFire. And Hooddies, Ralyx, CherepMikhailov, Sakuralovelight, Hyrushoten, GotNoName123, HighPriest, Jiggly Joe, Nemrut, BukkakeNoJutsu, Ghest, A me, Danget the critic, Krazyfanfiction1, Lasereye27, Anime Nightwing39, Senpen Banka, and Guest—if I misspelled your names it's because of my computer's autocorrect, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate your support.

Finally, most of all, I would like to thank Magery, my editor. You guys read these chapters when they were good, but he read them when they were crap, and even when they were crap he saw parts of them that were good. Also, he's the guy who got me started watching RWBY in the first place, so without him, I wouldn't even have thought about writing this story. So finally, Magery, thank you.


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